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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Temperance Physiology 



INTERMEDIATE CLASSES AND COMMON SCHOOLS 



PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION OF THE WOMEN'S 
NATIONAL CHRISTIAN. TEMPERANCE UNION 

MKS. MARY H. HUNT, 

SUPERINTENDENT 

WITH A 

Preface and Endorsement of Scientific Accuracy, 



A. B. PALMER, M.D., LL.D., 

PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, AND DEAN OF THE DEPARTMENT 

OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, AT ANN ARBOR, 

AND AUTHOR OF A TREATISE ON THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. . 



OCT 23. 

A. S. Barnes & Company, 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 






Copyright, 1881, A. S. Barnes & Co. 




"An Act relating to the Study of Physiology and Hygiene in 
the Public Schools. 

" The 'People of the State of JVew Yoi'k, rep?*ese?ited in 
Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows : 

"Section l. Provision shall "be made by the proper local school 
authorities for instructing all pupils in all schools supported by 
public money, or under State control, in physiology and hygiene, 
with special reference to the effects of alcoholic drinks, stimulants, 
and narcotics upon the human system." 



Tims read, with, slight modifications, the laws of 
four other states, viz., Vermont, Michigan, ISTew Hamp- 
shire, and Rhode Island. 

This book has been prepared to meet the demands 
of these states for intermediate grades of schools. 
Since the laws say that Physiology and Hygiene, with 
special .reference to the effects of alcoholic drinks, 
etc., shall he studied by all pupils in the public schools, 
such of the obvious facts of Physiology as would 
render the Hygiene intelligible have been included. 



4 PREFACE. 

Enough on tlie subject of Hygiene lias been intro- 
duced to give a general knowledge of the laws of 
health; while, as the spirit and the letter of the laws 
direct, especial reference has been made to the effects 
of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics. 

Eminent physicians and teachers have contributed 
helpful suggestions in the preparation of this work. 
Among the former are Prof. Palmer, M. D., LL. D., 
Dean of the Medical Department of Michigan Uni- 
versity ; Dr. Ezra M. Hunt, A. M., M. D., President of 
the section of the American Medical Association on 
State Medicine and Public Hygiene, Vice-President 
of the American Public Health Association, etc., and 
author of "Alcohol as a Food and Medicine." 

Of the teachers avIio have helped in shaping these 
truths into a suitable form for young minds, first 
mention should be made of Miss Alice M. Guernsey, 
High School, Wareham, Mass. 

The aid of Dr. Mary V. Lee, of the Oswego, N. Y., 
Normal School; Prof. Jones, Supt. of Public Instruc- 
tion, Erie, Penn. ; D. B. Hagar, Ph.D., Principal of the 
State Xormal School, Salem, Mass. ; Mr. E. P. Church, 
Supt. of Public Instruction, Greenville, Mich., and 
other practical instructors, is also gratefully recog- 
nized by the department that has had this matter in 

charge. 

MARY H. HUNT, 

Superintendent of the National Department 

of Scientific Instruction of the W. C. T. U. 



INTRODUCTION. 

I have examined the manuscript of this book, and 
find it covering more matter that I think should be 
taught in the elementary lessons on life and health 
in the schools, than I have found in the other works, 
with similar objects, which I have had occasion to 
examine. 

It is free from the errors which have been noticed 
and objected to in several other works on this subject 
designed for school use. 

I also think it free from such overstatements as 
are likely to be produced by ardent zeal. 

If all the facts contained in this little work are 
firmly lodged in the minds of the pupils in our pub- 
lic schools throughout the country, an immense work 
for good will be accomplished. 

Being profoundly impressed with the enormous 
evils to our race produced by the habitual use of 
narcotics, including alcohol, opium, and tobacco, I 
can but rejoice at the promising efforts to make ob- 
ligatory in the public schools the teaching of Physi- 
ology and Hygiene, with special reference to these 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

narcotics, and I know of no work which is a "better 
introduction to the subject than the present text- 
book. 

Of the diseases, the degeneracy, the vices, and the 
general ill "being produced by the alcohol habit, all 
observers must be aware. 

The evils of the opium habit are scarcely less, in 
proportion to its more limited extent, and the habit 
is, if possible, even less likely to be broken up when 
it is established. " 

The tobacco habit, though less disastrous to indi- 
viduals, and in its moral and social effects upon 
communities, still by its greater prevalence is doing 
an amount of mischief, especially with boys, which 
none so fully know as those physicians who have 
given special attention to the subject. 

The influence which indulgence in one narcotic 
has upon the resort to others should be more fully 
recognized, and the great importance of abstinence 
from all of them will, by these teachings, it is hoped, 
be more fully Linderstood and appreciated. 

It therefore gives me great pleasure to say this 
much, and in this place, in favor of the objects and 
the execution of this work, and in commendation 
of the efforts of those who have had the labor of its 
preparation. 

A. B. PALMER. 

Ann Arbor, Sept. 1, 1884. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction : . . . . 5 

First AVords 8 

I. — Alcohol 9 

II. — Fermentation 15 

III. — Distillation 25 

IV.— Tobacco 31 

V.— Opium 37 

VI— Bones 41 

VII.— Muscles 57 

VIIL— Food 65 

IX. — Are Narcotics Food 1 77 

X. — Digestion 87 

XL — Eespiration 109 

XII. — Circulation 125 

XIII. —The Skin 141 

XIV.— Animal Heat 149 

XV. — Alcohol and Life .... - 157 

XVI.— The Nervous System 165 

XVII.— Special Senses 193 

Index 203 



FIRST WORDS 



«->CV-> 



"JKTNOW thyself," is old and good advice. 
^^ As tlie body is an important part of 
a person, we are only obeying this counsel 
when we learn how it is built, how it lives, 
and what is good or bad for its health. 

Because many people are ignorant of the 
true nature of alcoholic drinks and other poi- 
sons, the law in some parts of our country 
requires the pupils in the public schools to 
study the human body and the effects of 
these drugs upon it. 

From these lessons you will learn, first, 
what these drugs are. That you may under- 
stand what they will do to those who use 
them, you must then learn about the human 
body and how to take care of it. 

When you see what alcohol, tobacco, and 
opium do to its many wonderful parts, and 
what trouble and sorrow they, cause, you will 
know why it is dangerous to use them. 



CHAPTEE I. 

ALCOHOL. 

^LCOHOL is a colorless liquid with, a 
stinging taste; it burns without soot, 
giving little light, hut great heat. It is 
lighter than water, and can not he frozen. 

It is used to dissolve gums, resins, and 
oils; to make smokeless names; to take from 
leaves, roots, harks, and seeds, materials for 
making perfumes and medicines; and to keep 
dead hodies from decaying. 

People do not usually drink clear alcohol 
(ai'-eo hoi). Rum, whiskey, wine, cider, gin, 
brandy, beer, etc., are water and alcohol with 
different flavors. Many million gallons of 
alcohol in these liquors are drunk every year 
by the people of this country. 

ORIGIN OF ALCOHOL. 

Water forms the larger part of the juice 
of the grape, apple, and other plants. The 
solid part of green fruits is mainly starch. 



10 ALCOHOL. 

Under the ripening action of the sun, this 
starch turns to sugar; this sugar gives us 
our sweet-tasting fruits and plants; and from 
such juices, boiled down, we get the sugar 
used for food. 

If this fruit or plant juice is drawn off 
from its pulp, and then exposed to the open 
air at summer heat, the sweet part changes: 
it is no longer sugar, because it has separated 
into a liquid called alcohol and a gas named 
carbonic acid. Much of this gas goes off into 
the air ; the alcohol remains in the liquid, 
changing a wholesome food into a dangerous 
drink. . 

ALCOHOL A POISON.* 

A poison is any substance whose nature 
it is, "when taken into the body either in 
small or large quantities, to injure health or 
destroy life. 

* Dr. A. B. Palmer, of Michigan University, says: "Medical 
writers admit that "by far the most disastrous and frequent cause 
of poisoning in all our communities is the use of alcohol." 

Dr. James Edmonds, of England, says: "The effects of no other 
common poison are more direct and certain than those of alcohol." 

Dr. "W. J. Youmans writes: "Alcohol a brain 

poison." 



WHAT IS A NARCOTIC? U 

Proper food is wrought into our bodies; 
"but poisons* are thrown out of them, if pos- 
sible, because unfit to be used in making 
any of their parts. 

In large doses, in its pure state, or when 
diluted, as in brandy, whiskey, rum, or gin, 
alcohol is often fatal to life. Deaths of men, 
women, and children from poisonous doses of 
this drug, are common. 

In smaller quantities, or in the lighter 
liquors — beer, wine, and cider — when used as 
a beverage, it injures the health in propor- 
tion to the amount taken. 

WHAT IS A NARCOTIC? 

Any substance that deadens the brain and 
nerves is called a narcotic; for example, ether 
(e'ther) and chloroform (c^io'ro form), which are 
given by the dentist, that he may extract 

Dr. Alden, of Massachusetts, tells us: "On every organ they 
touch, alcoholic drinks act as a poison. There is no such thing 
as their temperate use. They are always an enemy to the human 
body. They produce weakness, not strength ; sickness, not health ; 
death, not life." 

* Intoxicated means poisoned. The barbarians poisoned their ar- 
rows ; hence, from the Latin in, into — and toxicum, a poison into 
which arrows were dipped, we get the word which describes the 
condition of a person under the influence of alcohol. 



12 ALCOHOL. 

teeth, without pain. Alcohol is taken for 
similar purposes, and is a powerful narcotic. 

ALCOHOL AND WATER. 

Into a bottle half full of water, pour alco- 
hol to the top ; then shake it well, being very 
careful not to spill any of the liquid. Now, 
the bottle is not full. The alcohol has mixed 
with the water, and it does this wherever it 
has a chance. 

Oil and water will not unite; alcohol and 
water will always unite. 

In our study of the human body, which 
is seven parts out of eight, water,* we shall 
see how alcohol, beginning* at the lips, unites 
with the "water in every part of the drinker's 
body which it reaches, thus robbing it of the 
needed liquid. 



* I took one of those remains of the human body which have 
been preserved some thousands of years, and which is called an 
Egyptian mummy. 

It was probably the body of one who had been a great priest 
or ruler ; for it had been embalmed or preserved in the most ex- 
pensive form of embalming and had been inclosed in a tomb 
which must have cost a small fortune. 

I measured the mummy,— its length, its girth, and the relative 
size of its head and limbs and trunk. From these measurements 
I was able to estimate what would have been the weight of the 



ALCOHOLLC APPETITE. 13 

ALCOHOLIC APPETITE. 

Like all narcotic poisons, alcohol has the 
(fatal power of creating an increasing appe- 
tite for itself, that demands not only more 
frequent, hut stronger and larger doses. The 
greater its work of ruin, the harder and 
almost impossible to overcome will he its 
demand. 

The appetite does not gain with equal ra- 
pidity upon all ; hut no one can tell how 



body when its owner was moving on the earth in the midst of 
life and health. The weight of the body at that time, I reckoned, 
would have been 128 pounds. 

In the condition of a mummy, in which it was now before me, 
nothing remained but the dried skeleton or bony framework, and 
the muscles and other organs completely dried. The body, in fact, 
had, in the course of ages, lost all its water. 

In this state it weighed just sixteen pounds, and, as eight times 
sixteen are one hundred and twenty-eight, it is clear that seven 
parts out of eight of the whole body, or one hundred and twelve 
pounds, had passed away as water. In the remaining weight was 
included that of the skeleton, which contains but ten per cent, of 
water, and some mere remnants of canvas and pitchy substances, 
which had been used by the embalmers, and which, like the skele- 
ton, still continued perfect. 

The soft parts of this human body, by which all its active life, 
its moving and thinking "functionsT had been carried on, were, in 
fact, nearly all removed by the drying process, or loss of water, to 
which they had been subjected. They had not been destroyed by 
passing into new forms of matter, as occurs when a dead substance 
'is allowed to decay in the open air ; but they had completely lpst 
the water which once gave them size, flexibility, shape, and capac- 
ity for motion. - _ - - - 

Dr. 2?. W. Richardson^ of. London. 



14 ALCOHOL. 

long he will be satisfied with a little. This 
craving, so easily formed, and so hard to 
overcome, clings to its victims. Sometimes 
after slumbering through years of abstinence 
(ab'sti nen^), it is wakened by the first taste. 

The custom of putting wine and other 
alcoholic liquors into cooked foods, is a dan- 
gerous one, often causing the formation or 
return of a fearful appetite. The narcotic or 
deadening effect of alcohol upon the nerves, 
unfits the drinker to realize his peril; there- 
fore its use, even in small quantities, is a 
dangerous venture to the user. 

In this country, over 60,000 persons every 
year die as drunkards — that is, are killed by 
alcohol. None of them expected to become 
drunkards when they began to drink liquor; 
but they were ignorant, or careless, of the 
power of a little alcohol to create an appe- 
tite for more. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. "What is alcohol ? — Name some of its qualities. 

2. What are the uses of alcohol? 

3. From what is alcohol made ? 

4. How can you prove that alcohol is a poison ? 

5. How many persons every year die as drunkards ? 



CHAPTER II. 

FERMENTATION. 

TS7HAT is fermen ta'tion? When moist 
Jk) animal or vegetable matters are ex- 
posed to warm air, certain changes which 
take place alter their nature; these changes 
are produced toy a process called fermentation. 

When sugar is turning to alcohol and 
car toon' ic ac'id, the latter escapes in little 
"bubbles, giving the entire liquid the appear- 
ance of boiling. We call this process, and 
others, much like it, fermentation, from a 
Latin word which means to boil. 

There are several kinds of fermentation. 
In these lessons we. shall learn atoout only 
two of them. 

I. Vi'nous Fermentation— the change of sugar 

to alcohol. 

II. A ce' tons Fermentation — the change of alco- 
hol and other sutostances to vinegar. 



16 FERMENTATION. 

VINOUS FERMENTATION. 
BACTERIA AND YEAST. 

If you should look at a drop of stagnant 
water under a strong mi' cro scope, you would 
be quite likely to find it full of small living 
tilings, so tiny that you could not see them 
at all with the naked eye ; these mi nute' 
animal and vegetable forms are alive, and 
often in rapid motion. 

In the air, also, are many living forms, 
too small to be seen by the naked eye, called 
bacteria (ba-e te' ri a). 

There are particles coming from them 
much smaller than the full-grown bacteria, 
which will become bacteria by growth. These 
are called spores, and are floating almost 
every-where in the air, and, from their ex- 
treme smallness, can get into places where 
the bacteria might not be able to come. 

They have been carefully studied with 
the help of the microscope, and we know 
that, instead of the air, it is these bacteria 
or their spores in the air, which produce 
fermentation in certain liquids. 



BACTERIA AND YEAST. 17 

Tlie juices of the grape, apple, and many 
other fruits, will, if placed under the right 
conditions, ferment by the action of these 
living forms. 

In order to ferment some other liquids 
and thus obtain intoxicating drinks, yeast * 
must he added. In this way some people 
Drew home-made beer— "by steeping various 
roots, harks, and herbs in water, and adding 
yeast and sugar enough to cause fermenta- 
tion. The alcohol that is formed by the 
change 01 the sugar, makes the beer a dan- 
gerous drink. 

When a liquid is fermenting, the little 
bubbles of carbonic acid carry a froth to the 
top, which can be used as yeast to act on 
other liquids. At the bottom lie the " set- 
tlings," a half-solid mass, sometimes called 
the lees. Between the froth and the lees is a 
thin, intoxicating liquid, which people drink 
under different names, as, wine, cider, beer, etc. 

Dry sugar will not ferment, nor "will al- 
cohol be formed in liquids which have an 



* Yeast is really a plant, and it is the growth of the yeast plant 
which causes fermentation in these liquids, 



18 FERMENTATION. 

excess of sugar. Trie united action of sugar, 
water, heat, and of the "bacteria or spores 
in the air, or of yeast — each in the right 
proportion — are always required to produce 
alcohol. 

ALCOHOL FROM GRAINS. 

Starch forms a large part of rye, corn, 
barley, and other grains. If these are kept 
moist and warm — as when planted in the 
earth in spring or summer, — their starch 
turns to sugar, when the grain, which is 
a seed, begins to grow. Chew a grain of 
sprouted corn or barley, and you will find 
it sweet. 

Barley is kept moist with "water until it 
sprouts, or throws out little roots. During 
this process, most of the starch that is in 
the barley changes to sugar. Heat is then 
applied, strong enough to dry out all the 
moisture of the barley and kill the young 
roots. 

Grain thus treated is called malt, and 
from this malt, pale ales and beers are 
made. 



ALCOHOL AND BREAD. 19 

Heating to a higher temperature, so as 
slightly to burn the sprouted grain, makes 
dark malt, from which porter and stout — 
dark colored drinks — are manufactured. 

If the sugar thus formed in barley is dis- 
solved out of the grain with water, and yeast 
is added, and the whole exposed to warm air, 
another change takes place, — the sugar which 
was once starch, becomes alcohol, and car- 
bonic acid. By this process, a good food has 
been changed to a poison; for the barley has 
become an intoxicating drink — ale, beer, or 
porter. 

ALCOHOL AND BREAD. 

We must not conclude that fermentation 
is never a good thing. If it is stopped at 
just the right point, and the alcohol all 
driven off by heat, it improves some kinds 
of food. 

• Crushed grain, or flour, is a valuable food ; 
but, in this form, is not pleasant to eat. 
Yeast added to warm, moistened flour causes 
fermentation. A little of the starch in the 
flour turns to sugar, and then to alcohol and 



20 FERMENTATION. 

carbonic acid gas. This gas, in a thin liquid, 
would pass off into the air. But it is im- 
prisoned by the sticky dough, and puffs it 
up with little cells in its effort to escape, 
thus making the otherwise solid mass, light 
and spongy. 

The very small quantity of alcohol which 
was formed, evaporates, and the gas escapes 
when the dough is placed in the strong heat 
of the oven, and a light, sweet loaf of oread 
is left, that is better food than the flour. 

Alcohol turns to vapor with less heat than 
water. In bread "baked enough to be food 
fit for the human stomach, there is no alco- 
hol. It has been turned to vapor by the heat 
of the oven, and has passed off into the air. 

People who are ignorant of the truths you 
are learning in these lessons, have supposed 
that because fermented dough makes good 
bread to eat, therefore fermented barley-juice 
must make good beer to drink. But you 
know the alcohol stays in the beer and not 
in the bread, and that simple fact makes the 
difference, in this case, between a food and 
a poison. 



ALCOHOL IN FERMENTED LIQUORS. 21 



AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL IN FERMENTED LIQUORS. 

In one hundred parts of the fermented 
juice of apples, or cider, tliere are from two 
to ten parts of alcohol. In one hundred parts 
of beer — the fermented juice of barley— there 
are from three to ten parts of alcohol. 

In one hundred parts of the fermented 
juice of grapes and other kinds of fruits, or 
wines, there are from six to twenty-five parts 
of alcohol. 

It is estimated (in 1880) that twenty-two 
and three-quarter million gallons of alcohol 
are consumed every year by the people of 
this country, in beer alone. 

This makes nearly one-half gallon of pure 
alcohol used by every man, woman, and child 
of our 50,000,000 — if all were foolish enough 
to drink it. 

As very many people drink no beer at 
all, some of the beer-drinkers must get more 
than this one-half gallon of poison during 
each year. Further study will show you 
the consequences of the use of this great 
quantity of alcohol. 



22 FERMENTATION. 

HEAT AND FERMENTED LIQUORS. 

If 3^ou were to place fermented liquors of 
any kind in an open kettle over strong neat, 
their charm for the wine, cider, or heer-lover, 
would soon he gone. It is for the sake of 
the alcohol they contain, that people are fond 
of these drinks, and this passes away in the 
form of vapor from the "boiling liquid; the 
liquid Avhich is left, has an insipid taste and 
no one would care to drink it. 

ALCOHOL IN NATURE. 

It is a mistake to suppose that hecause 
grapes, apples, and barley, are healthful foods, 
that wine, cider, and beer, made from them 
must also he healthful. 

It is important to remember that fermen- 
tation entirely changes the character of the 
substance it works upon. Nature rots her 
various plant forms; but while the juice re- 
mains protected from the air by the skin or 
husk of the unbroken grain, plant, or fruit, 
its sugar will not ferment — therefore, alcohol 
is never found in them. 



ALCOHOL AND VINEGAR. 23 

ACETOUS FERMENTATION. 
ALCOHOL AND VINEGAR. 

All vegetable substances come from earth., 
air, and water, and return to them again. 

Through the process of fermentation, vege- 
table liquids go back to earth, air, and water. 
After the alcohol is formed, if it remains in 
the vegetable juice, exposed to moderately 
warm air, the second kind, or acetous fer- 
mentation, takes place, changing the alcohol 
to a sharp acid called acetic acid, commonly 
known as vinegar. 

When the cook has not baked the bread at 
just the right time — that is, has not stopped 
the fermentation before the alcohol began to 
turn to vinegar in the dough, we say, "the 
bread is sour." This acetic acid does not pass 
off in the heat of the oven as alcohol does, 
but leaves its sour taste in the bread. 

Vinous fermentation, producing alcohol, 
can not take place in jellies and preserves, 
because they contain an excess of sugar. 
When they begin to " work " — as they may, 



24 FERMENTATION. 

if kept in moderately warm air — acetic acid, 
or vinegar, is produced in them by acetous 
fermentation ; the acid is not made from 
alcohol in this case, hut is the result of other 
changes in the fruit juices. "Scalding" ma.kes 
them sweet again, by driving off this acetic 
acid, which can escape from a thin liquid, 
but not from the dough. 

This acid is as different from alcohol, as 
alcohol is from sugar. It is used for food. 
Vinegar is made in this way from hard cider 
and other fermented liquors, and will change, 
in its turn, if left in the same conditions that 
produced it, and lose its acid taste; its water 
all evaporating, nothing will remain but a 
brown powder. 

The earth, air, and water have claimed 
again the matter only loaned to make the 
fruit, plant, or grain. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What is fermentation ? 

2. Define vinous fermentation. "What are bacteria?— spores? 

3. What four things are needed to produce alcohol ? 

4. How is malt made? What liquors are made from it? 

5. Define acetous fermentation. When does it take place? 

6. What causes sour bread? — the "working" of jellies? 

7. How may vinegar be changed to earth, air, and water? 



CHAPTEE III. 

DISTILLATION. 

T*J^7HEN a liquid is changed to a vapor by 
Acr heat, and that vapor is turned again 
to a liquid by cold, the process is called dis- 
tillation (dis til la'tion). 

Cold surfaces condense the moisture in 
the night air, and we say: "The dew is fall- 
ing." By the heat of the sun, these drops of 
water are turned again to vapor that rises 
and spreads itself in the air ; this is again 
changed to "water by cold, and falls in the 
form of dew or rain. Thus, with her own 
heat and cold, "Nature is ever distilling." 

Unless sugar is dissolved in water, it will 
not turn to alcohol ; therefore, when first 
formed, alcohol is always mixed with water. 

Alcohol and water could not be separated, 
until men, in imitation of nature, learned to 
distill. 

Every child who has watched the steam 



26 DISTILLATION. 

puffing from a tea-kettle, knows that heat 
will turn a liquid to vapor. Some liquids 
require less heat than others for this change. 
When two such liquids are mixed, one can 
he made to pass off in vapor, leaving the 
other. Thus alcohol and water may he sepa- 
rated. 

Put a fermented liquor into a kettle over 
the fire, with a pipe in its closely-fitting 
cover to carry off the steam. Nearly all the 
alcohol will pass off in vapor "before the water 
comes to the hoiling point. 

If this pipe is of the right length, and 
is cooled hy ice or cold water, the vapor, 
while passing through it, will turn to a liquid 
and drip from the end of the pipe. If yon 
apply a lighted match to this new liquid, it 
will hum with a pale hlue name, giving out 
intense heat. 

It is mainly alcohol which has heen sepa- 
rated—distilled—from the fermented mixture. 
What remains in the kettle is principally 
water. The alcohol is Linchanged in its na- 
ture; hut is stronger, "because not so much 
diluted with water. 



DISTILLATION 



Fig. 2. 




^r/^r/w^/.-You may easily make this experiment 
for yourselves. 

Put some hard cider into a teapot (d), and fasten 
a piece of rubber tubing (e) about two feet long" to 
the spout. 

Let the other end of the tubing reach into a 
bottle (d) standing in a pail of cold water or on a 
block of ice (c). 

Heat the cider by means of the lamp («), being 
careful not to make it hot enough for the water in 
the cider to boil. 

If the cider is not very strong, you may have to 
re-distill it before you find the alcohol is pure 
enough to burn. 



28 DISTILLATION. 



DISTILLED LIQUORS. 

Ill tlie manner just described, brandy is 
distilled frorn wine or cider ; rum from fer- 
mented molasses; whiskey from fermented 
corn, barley, or potatoes; gin from fermented 
barley, or rye, afterward distilled with juni- 
per berries. Ordinarily these distilled liquors 
are about one half pure alcohol. 

Some of the water passes over with the 
alcohol, so that these liquors are often dis- 
tilled a second, and even a third time, to 
make them stronger of alcohol. 

The alcohol usually sold is distilled from 
fermented molasses ; but it can be made from 
any fermented liquor. It is so greedy for 
water that entirely pure alcohol can be pro- 
duced only by distilling it with some sub- 
stance such as lime, that is still more eager 
for water, and will take it from the alcohol. 

DRUGGED LIQUORS. 

Wine in its many forms was probably the 
first, and for many centuries, the only known 
intoxicating drink. 



HOW ALCOHOL WAS DISCOVERED. 29 

The ancients supposed that each of the 
various fruit juices made a different kind of 
liquor ; but you see all of them are mainly 
alcohol and water. The different taste of 
each, if it is really what it claims to he, is 
due to its own peculiar fruit, grain, or plant 
flavor. 

Poisonous drugs and coloring matter are 
often added to alcohol and water to imitate 
the various liquors. So much of this is done 
that many of the fermented and distilled 
liquors now sold and used, contain other 
poisons added to their own ever-present one 
— alcohol — the m ost dangerous of all ; there- 
fore, the idea that " unadulterated whiskey," 
or that the " pure, fermented juice of the 
grape" can he "good," is a mistake. 

HOW ALCOHOL WAS DISCOVERED. 

The people who lived ahout 700 years ago, 
thought that somewhere, if they could only 
find them, were two things that would greatly 
hless the world. First, something that would 
turn iron and all common metals into gold, 
and thus easily and greatly enrich the finder: 



30 DISTILLATION. 

second, an " elixir of life," which would pre- 
vent sickness and death, and keep those who 
drank it forever young. 

The men who tried many curious experi- 
ments in search of these two wonders, were 
called alchemists (ai'che mists). It is supposed 
an Arab named Albucasis was thus led to 
discover alcohol by distilling it from wine. 

He thought it was the long sought "elixir 
of life." He drank heavily of it, urging oth- 
ers to do the same. His career of intoxica- 
tion and violence was short. He had found 
not the " elixir of life " hut the " water of 
death." 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What is distillation? 

2. Show that "Nature is ever distilling." 

3. Describe the process of distillation of liquors. 

4. Why are they distilled ? 

5. What are the principal distilled liquors? 

6. From what is each made? 

7. How is pure alcohol obtained? 

8. What two substances form the greater part of all 

liquors ? 

9. How are the different plant flavors imitated ? 

10. Are "pure fermented liquors" healthful and safe? 

Why? 

11. What led to the discovery of alcohol ? 

12. How did it affect its discoverer? 



OH APTEE IV. 

TOBACCO. 

TOT NTT L within a few years, the Middle and 
Gu part of the Southern States have been 
the chief tobacco-raising regions of our coun- 
try. Now, however, the cultivation of tobacco 
has spread, until many fertile valleys, even 
as far north as Canada, are devoted to the 
growth of "the "weed." 

The plant reaches a height of several feet, 
and has large, spreading, pale-green leaves, 
which are dried, and then made into cigars 
or prepared to be smoked in pipes, or chewed, 
or used as snuff. 

NICOTINE. 

Tobacco, a powerful narcotic, contains a 
substance called nicotine (ni-e'o tm^). A single 
drop, if put on the tongue of a dog, will soon 
kill the animal. An ordinary cigar contains 



32 TOBACCO. 

nicotine enough to kill two men, if taken 
pure. 

One lias to learn to like tobacco. Boys 
who try it, know that at first it gives them 
headache, dizziness, and sickness at the stom- 
ach. Their poor bodies try to tell them they 
are taking a poison. 

If they keep on, the nicotine deadens their 
nerves, so they do not feel these effects, 
though they are more or less injured all the 
time. 

CIGARETTES. 

Many hoys and young men learn to smoke 
by beginning with cig ar ettes'. These seem 
harmless because they are so small ; but they 
are one of the worst possible preparations of 
tobacco. 

The smoke of the paper wrappings is irri- 
tating to the lungs, and the cigarettes send 
more poisonous fames into the delicate air- 
cells than a pipe or a cigar. 

Drinking men are almost always smokers 
or chewers, and many a drunkard owes his 
ruined life and happiness, to the appetite 



TOBACCO AND GROWTH. 33 

for narcotics formed "by trie use of tobacco, 
and tlie company into which it led him. 

Old cigar-stumps are often picked up from 
the streets and smoked or made into cigar- 
ettes. This is worse than disgusting; for, in 
this way, diseases may he spread, coming 
from the mouths of the first users. These 
stumps are the "strongest" part of the ci- 
gars — that is, they contain the most nicotine, 

which thus goes into the cigarettes. 

* 

TOBACCO AND GROWTH. 

A hoy who uses tobacco runs the risk of 
being dwarfed in body, mind, and soul; — of 
becoming a nervous, sickly man, with a weak 
memory and a feeble heart. 

Physicians agree that many and serious 
troubles result from its use, even by adults;— 
it is certain that growing boys can never 
indulge in it with safety. 

An eminent physician — Dean of one of the 
leading medical colleges in this country — 
(Dr. A. B. Palmer, of the University of Michi- 
gan), says that young men who learn to 
smoke or chew tobacco, destroy on an aver- 



34 TOBACCO. 

age, by so doing, one-fifth of the enjoyment 
and value, and at least one-tenth of the 
length of their lives. 

As with other narcotics, using a little 
makes one long for more; the boy who begins 
with one or two cigars a day, soon increases 
the number. 

Many men who are now slaves to this poi- 
son, would gladly be free from it; and very 
few tobacco-users would advise their sons to 
adopt the expensive, uncleanly, and worse 
than useless habit. 

COST OF TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL. 

What is the yearly expense of a live-cent 
mug of beer for each week-day, and two on 
Sundays ? How many barrels of flour would 
this money buy at $6.00 a barrel ? 

What is the annual cost of the habit to 
a boy who spends five cents for cigarettes 
each day of the year? If, instead of burning 
it up, the boy, when fourteen years old, puts 
the value of the cigarettes into the Savings- 
Bank daily, what will it amount to by the 
time he is twenty-one ? 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 35 

If a man earns one dollar a day, and spends 
daily nve cents for tobacco and five cents 
for beer, wliat part of bis earnings is tlms 
worse tlian wasted on tbese narcotics ? 

If twenty cents a day be spent for cigar- 
ettes and beer, wbat amount will be lost to 
tlie user in three months' time ? 

What amount would be saved in ten 
years' time, if a man "who spends thirty cents 
a day for liquor, should give up the habit 
entirely ? 

How much will the expense of "treating" 
be likely to increase the amount one spends 
for alcohol and tobacco ? 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. In what sections of this country is tobacco raised ? Describe 

the plant. 

2. Give proof of the poisoning power of nicotine. 

3. What are the usual effects "when one uses tobacco for the first 

time ? 

4. Why does the tobacco-user not continue to feel these effects? 

5. Why are cigarettes especially harmful ? 

6. How may the use of tobacco be the means of leading one to 

drink liquors ? 

7. W T hat risks does a boy run in using tobacco? 

8. How does the appetite for tobacco change with the use of the 

drug ? Why ? 

9. Which is the more profitable purchase — tobacco or flour? Why? 



36 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

1. Under what names is alcohol drunk ? 

2. What is the difference between a food and a poison ? 

3. Describe Dr. Richardson's experiment with the mummy. 

4. What is the effect of alcohol upon the water in the human 

body? 

5. Why does the drinker of alcohol fail to realize his danger? 



CHAPTER II. 

1. Describe the appearance of a fermenting liquid? 

2. What does the microscope show in stagnant "water? 

3. What conditions will prevent the formation of alcohol from 

sugar ? 

4. What makes bread light and spongy? 

5. What is the effect of heat on fermented liquors? 



CHAPTER V. 

OPIUM. 

'HE white poppy is a plant which is 
largely cultivated in India and China. 
If little slits are cut in the unripe seed- 
vessels, drops of milky juice come out. When 
dry, these are carefully scraped off and sold 
as opium (o'pi um). 

From this opium, are made laudanum 
(laudanum), morphine (mor'phin^), paregoric 
(par egor'i-e), and the various kinds of soothing- 
syrups. It is one of the most deadly of the 
narcotic poisons. 

EFFECTS. 

Usually, these various forms of opium are 
taken at first by the advice of the doctor, to 
relieve pain. But the appetite, like that for 
alcohol and tobacco, grows stronger, and the 
dose is made larger, as the habit gains upon 
its victim. 

Opium does not make one violent, so as 



38 OPIUM. 

to injure and murder others, as alcohol often 
does ; hut its effects on the users themselves 
are, if possible, even worse than those of 
alcohol. 

At first, the user seems to he in a pleas- 
ant and wonderful dream ; then he grows 
stupid and unconscious. When he comes to 
his senses again, there is a feeling of horror; 
to free himself from this, he longs for more 
of the drug, and "will get it if possible. He 
seems to lose all power of self-control, and 
breaks the most solemn promises, if, by doing 
so, he can obtain the poison. 

Many lives that might have been grand 
and noble, have been destroyed by opium. 
Druggists often have regular opium-custom- 
ers : of these, there are many more women 
than men, because women are more subject 
to nervous diseases, and hence are more likely 
to learn to use this drug. 

Those who have the care of children, fre- 
quently quiet them by the use of soothing- 
syrup. It stops the baby's cry, of course, for 
it deadens the nerves and so poisons the 
tender child-life, often leaving injuries from 



THE NARCOTIC HABIT. 39 

which, it never recovers. An overdose at 
once kills the little one. 

Gin and other liquors are sometimes used 
for the same purpose. Because this practice 
injures the health, often creating a craving 
for alcohol, it is a cruel betrayal of trust on 
the part of those charged with the care of 
helpless infants. 

THE NARCOTIC HABIT. 

Chloral (-ehlS'ral) and chloroform (-ehlo'ro f6rm) 

are often used in sickness ; hut, like opium, 
are narcotics, and therefore dangerous helps. 
They should never he used in health, or 
on trivial occasions, or for any length of 
time. 

One narcotic is very likely to lead to an- 
other. A gentleman once tried to break off 
the habit of smoking by drinking wine in- 
stead. He found the wine was enslaving 
him; he tried morphine, and soon became its 
victim. At last, with a body sadly wrecked, 
he returned to tobacco, his first enemy, -with 
his naturally fine abilities ruined through 
the appetite for narcotics. 



40 OPIUM. 

Turning from one narcotic to another is 
merely a change of masters. The only hope 
lies in the poor victim's power to stop using 
all of these poisons. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. How is opium obtained? 

2. Under what names is it sold ? 

3. Describe its effects on the user. 

4. "Why are there more opium-users among women than among 

men ? 

5. Why does soothing-syrup stop a child's cry? 

6. What other narcotics are used in a similar way? 

7. Is it safe and right to so use them? Why? 

8. Why are opium, chloral, and chloroform called narcotics? 

9. Is any thing gained by changing one narcotic for another? 
10. What is the only safe rule in regard to the use of these 

poisons ? 



CHAPTER VI. 

ORGANS.* 

NY part of an animal or vegetable body 
which has some special work to do, is 
called an organ. For example, the root takes 
up food for the plant ; the eye is the organ 
of sight ; the nose, of smell. 

Plants and animals are called organic 
bodies, because they have organs. Stone, 
iron, coal, and other minerals, are called in- 
organic bodies, because they have no organs. 

The solid parts of the body are called 
tissues; thus we speak of the fatty tissue, 
and the muscular tissue. 

THE HUMAN SKELETON. 

This is so much like the skeleton of tne 
ox or the cat, that studying their bones will 
help us to understand about our own. 

* References are to Frontispiece, page 2. 



4-2 



BONES. 




The human skeleton is composed of about 
two hundred separate bones. It forms tlie 
frame work of tlie body, and fur- 
nishes a bard surface to wliicb to 
fasten tbe flesb. It also protects 
tlie softer parts within, as tbe 
be art and lungs. 

SHAPE OF THE BONES. 

Some are long, like tbose of 
tbe leg and arm ; some are flat, 
like tbe bones of tbe bead. In 
tbe ankle and wrist, they are short 
and irregular. All are shaped for 
their special uses in the body. 

COMPOSITION OF THE BONES. 

The bones are made of both 
mineral and animal matter. 

To prove this, burn the leg- 
bone of a chicken in a slow fire ; 
the animal matter will pass away, 
leaving a -white substance the 
shape of the bone, until it is roughly touched 
— then it crumbles into dust. This is a kind 
of lime, and is valuable as a fertilizer. 



The thigh-bone 

(femur) sawed 

lengthwise. 



GROWTH OF THE BONES. 43 

Tlie mineral matter may be removed by 
soaking a bone for a few hours in weak 
muriatic acid ; the animal matter, or gristle, 
which is left, is soft and yielding, so that 
you may bend the bone, or tie it in a knot 
if long enough. 

Egg-shells also contain lime. Yon may 
easily puzzle some of your friends, by putting 
an egg into a very small-necked bottle. All 
that yon need to do is to soak the egg in 
weak acid, until the shell is so soft that it 
can be pushed through the neck of the 
bottle ;. once in, it will take its natural form 
again. 

In childhood, the bones contain more ani- 
mal than mineral matter, and so are not 
easily broken ; in old age, there is more 
mineral than animal matter, and the bones 
are brittle and break very easily. 

GROWTH OF THE BONES. 

Like the rest of the body, the bones are 
fed by the food we eat. 

Mix some bright coloring-matter that is 
not poisonous, as madder, with the food given 



44 BONES 

to young* pigs for a time, and then give the 
same food without the color. If the animal 
he killed after a short time, each hone will 
show the color of the madder. This proves 
that the hones were made from the food the 
animal had eaten. 

LIFE OF THE BONES. 

In infancy, hones begin their life as a sort 
of jelly, which hardens into gristle, or carti- 
lage, as the child groAvs. This cartilage re- 
ceives from the blood several hinds of food, 
the most important of which are certain 
forms of lime; these, little by little, change 
the soft gristle to hard bone. 

Farmers give their hens oyster -shells, 
■which contain lime, so that they may have 
material for the shells of the eggs they lay. 
Human beings get lime from milk and other 
foods containing it. When the bones have 
too little lime they are soft and weak. 

A fatty matter, called marrow, is in the 
center of the long bones, with blood-vessels 
passing through it and through very small 
holes in the bone itself, carrying food for its 



POSITIONS AND NAMES OF THE BONES. 45 

life and growth.. Covering each hone is a 
very thin, tough skin. 

BROKEN BONES. 

If an iron rod in a steam-engine should 
break, would it he enough to fasten the 
"broken pieces tightly, end to end, and then 
wait a few weeks for the iron to grow to- 
gether? You laugh at the idea. But the 
hones do that— they mend themselves when 
broken. 

All that is needed is to put the ends in 
place and fasten them tightly with splints 
and bandages, so that they can not move, 
Soon a jelly-like substance, made from the 
blood in the bone, connects the two ends; 
then this changes to gristle, and, by-and-by, 
into solid bone, and the break is mended. 

The bones of young people, when broken, 
unite readily, and, in a few weeks, become as 
strong as ever. This is due both to the 
composition of the bones and the abundant 
supply of repairing substances in the blood. 

A bone broken late in life is a long time 
in being united, and is likely to remain weak. 



46 



BONES. 



THE SKULL AND FACE BONES. 

These protect tlie organs of sight, hearing, 
smell, and taste, and the Drain, the organ of 
thought. 

Fig. 5. 




Tlie Skull.— 1, frontal bone ; 2, parietal bone ; 3, temporal bone ; 6, superior maxil- 
lary (upper jaw) bone; 7, malar bone; 9, nasal bone; 10, inferior maxillary (lower 
jaw) bone. 

THE TRUNK. 

The hones of the trunk are the "backbone, 
or spine, the ribs, the breast-bone, and the 
hip-bones. The spine is composed of a series 
of twenty-four little bones, called vertebrae. 



THE RIBS. 



47 



\Si 



* 



Cushions of gristle lie between 
the vertebrae. If it were not for 
t ius, walking and running would 
jar the body greatly. 

In sitting or standing, as we 
do through the day, these cush- 
ions are pressed and so flattened. 
When we lie down at night, they 
return to their natural shape, 
much as a rubber eraser "would do 
if you pressed it with your finger 
and then took the finger away. 
For this reason, one is really a 
little taller in the morning than 
at night. 

The ribs are slender, curved 
bones, twenty-four in number, 
twelve on each side of the body. 
Behind, they are attached to the 
backbone ; in front, seven pairs 
are joined to a dagger-shaped 
bone, called the breast -bone; 
three are joined by gristle to each 
other, and then to the breast-bone; two are 
"floating" ribs. (See Fig. 7.) 



The Spine; 
the seven ver- 
tebrae of the 
neck, cervical; 
the twelve of 
the back, dor- 
sal; the Jive of 
the loins, lumbar. 



48 



BONES. 



The hip "bones are two large, irregular 
bones which form the side-walls of the lower 
part of the trunk. (See Frontispiece, page 2.) 



Fig. 8. 



Fig. 7. 





The chest ; a, the sternum or breast-bone ; 
b to c, the true ribs ; d to f, the false ribs ; 
g, h, the floating ribs ; i to k, the dorsal verte- 
brae. 



Bones of right fore-arm ; H, the 
humerus; R, the radius; U, the 
ulna. 



THE UPPER LIMBS. 

The collar-hones are in front of the upper 
part of the body ; the shoulder-blade, at the 
back. Fastened to the latter, on each side, 
is the large bone of the upper arm ; below 



THE LOWER LIMBS. 



49 



the elbow, are tlie two bones of the fore-arm, 
and those of the wrist, the palm of the hand, 
and the thumb and fingers. 



Fig. 9. 




Fig. 10. 




of the foot ; a, b, c, d, e, f, g, bones 
of the ankle and instep ; h, i, forward part 
of the foot ; k, 1, bones of the great toe ; 
m, n, o, bones of the other toes. 



The shoulder-joint; a, the collar-bone; 
b, the shoulder-blade ; c, the large bone of 
the upper arm. 



THE LOWER LIMBS. 

The thigh-bone, in the leg above the knee, 
joins the hip-bone. Below the knee are the 
two bones of the lower leg and those of the 
ankle, foot, and toes. In front of the knee- 
joint is a small bone called the knee-pan. 



50 BONES. 

As there are nineteen bones in each hand 
or foot, they have a great variety of motions. 
A hand or foot made of one bone, would be 
stiff and clumsy.* 

CAVITIES. 

There are two principal cavities, or hol- 
low places, in the bony frame-work. 

The first is the cavity of the head. The 
second is a great hollow place, extending 
from the neck to the legs, divided into two 
parts by a partition called the diaphragm 

(dra Mm). 

In the upper part— the chest— are the heart 
and lungs; in the lower — the abdomen — are 
the liver, stomach, bowels or intestines, kid- 
neys, and other organs. 



* Many Japanese and Chinese use their toes almost as readily 
as they do their fingers. They will pick up tools with their toes 
and work with them, while managing other instruments in their 
hands. 

"Workmen in Constantinople always sit on the ground, even in 
planing a hoard ; sometimes they hold a long-handled chisel in the 
left hand, "while the toes guide the cutting edge in turning beau- 
tiful forms in a lathe." 

"Arabs braid ropes with their toes and fingers laboring in con- 
cert." Our toes are so cramped in their stiff leather boots that we 
do not pretend to use them. 



TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL BONES 



51 



TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL BONES, 



No. Scientific Name. 

1.— Front'al 
1.— O-eeip'i tal 
2.— Pa rl's tal 

2.— Tem'po ral 

2.— Su pe'ri or Max'il la ry 
1.— In fe'ri or Max'il la ry 
2.— Ma'lar 
2.— Na'sal 



THE HEAD AND FACE. 

Common Name or Position. 
Forehead- 
Back of the head. 
Upper side walls of the 

head. 
Lower side walls of the 

head. 
Upper jaw. 
Lower jaw. 
Cheek. 
Nose. 



THE SHOULDER, ARM, AND HAND 



No. Scientific Name. 

1. — S-eap'u la 

1 .—■ eiav' i <sl^ 

1. — Hu'me rus 

1. — Ra'di us) 

1.— Ul'na ) 

8— -Cap'pus 

5.— Met a -ear' pus 
14— Phalan'ges. 



Common Name or Position. 
Shoulder-blade. 
Collar-bone. 
Upper arm. 

Fore-arm. 

Wrist. 
Hand. 
Thumb and fingers. 



52 BONES. 

THE TRUNK. 

No. Scientific Name. Common Name or Position. 

24.— Ver'te brae Backbone. 

24.— Ribs Side walls of the chest. 

1. — Ster'num Breast-bone. 

2.— In nom i na'ta Hip bones. 

THE LEG AND FOOT. 



No. Scientific Name. 


Common Name or Position. 


1. — Fe'mur 


Thigh. 


1.— Patel'la 


Knee-pan. 


1.— Tib'i a , 
1.— Fib'ulai 


Lower leg. 


7-Tar'sus 


Ankle. 


5.— Met 7 a tar sus 


Foot. 


14.— Pha lan'ges. 


Toes. 



GENERAL DEFINITIONS. 

Anat'omy tells how the body is built and the loca- 
tion of its parts. 

Phys i &V o gy tells the uses of each part of the body. 

Hy'gi ene tells the conditions of health, and how to 
preserve it. 



POSITIONS OF THE BODY. 53 



POSITIONS OF THE BODY. 

Tlie "bones of children are easily bent out 
of shape by wrong positions in sitting and 
standing 1 . Their feet should be supported 
when sitting, lest the bones of the lower 
limbs become bent. 

The head and shoulders should be thrown 
back and the body held erect in walking, 
standing, or sitting, or the spine will become 
crooked. 

The cushions of gristle between the ver- 
tebrae permit free and graceful motions of 
the body. If we stand erect, with the chin 
quite close to the neck, the head, without 
being bent forward, is perfectly balanced over 
our feet. 

But if one has the habit of stooping for- 
ward, these cushions are so tightly pressed 
on the front that they lose their elasticity; 
then one can hardly keep erect, and we say 
he is "round-shouldered." Bad as this looks, 
it is the cause of worse trouble, as "will be 
seen when we study the lungs. 

If the body leans to one side, when one 



54 BONES. 

is standing, the hip-bones will soon grow 
out of shape. Unless careful about this, you 
will make your body one-sided by your po- 
sition at the blackboard, or when standing 
to recite. 

In -walking, the foot expands in length 
and breadth. This should be remembered in 
buying shoes. 

The heels of shoes ought to be low and 
broad, and placed well back ; high heels 
crowd the foot forward and throw the whole 
body out of position. The shoe should be 
broad across the ball of the foot and the 
toes. 

Tight -shoes and high heels make the toes 
oyer-ride each other, spoil the natural beauty 
of the foot and the graceful carriage of the 
person, and are likely to cause bunions, corns, 
and ingrowing toe nails. 

The laws of health are of much more 
importance than those of fashion. Children's 
shoes must be changed frequently for larger 
ones, on account of their rapidly-growing 
feet; if this is not done, serious injury will 
be the result. 



JOINTS. 



55 



TOBACCO AND THE BONES. 

In whatever way tobacco may affect grown 
people, it is very certain that its use in 
cliildliood stunts tlie "bones and dwarfs all 
the growth of the child. No hoy who "wants 
to become a full-grown, well-shaped man, can 
afford to smoke or chew tobacco. 

Fig. 11. 




The Hip Joint. 



JOINTS. 

A joint is the place of union of two or 
more bones. 

At the shoulder and hip are "ball-and- 



56 BONES. 

socket" joints, which, permit very easy move- 
ments of the arm and leg. In the fingers, 
■wrist, and knee are "hinge-joints," so named 
becaiise the hones move backward and for- 
ward like a door upon its hinges. The hones 
of the head have rough edges which fit into 
each other, making immovable joints. 

An engine must he often oiled, or it will 
not run properly. It can not take care of 
itself. But the hones not only mend them- 
selves, hut oil themselves. The joints are 
kept moist by a thin fluid like the white of 
an egg; this comes from the smooth lining 
of the inside of the joint; and it makes the 
ends of the bones move readily on each other. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What is an organ ? 

2. Give examples of organs in plant life — in animal life. 

3. "What are organic bodies? — inorganic bodies? 

4. What are the uses of the bones? 

5. What is the composition of the bones? 

6. AVhy do the bones of a child not break as easily as those of an 

old person ? 

7. What animal food is needed for the bones ? 

8. How is a broken bone mended ? 

9. How may the bones of the lower limbs be bent ? 

10. Describe the correct position in "which one ought to stand. 

11. How does tobacco affect the bones of a child? 

12. What is a joint? Describe two kinds. 

13. Define Anatomy ; Physiology ; Hygiene. 



CHAPTEE VII 



MUSCLES. 



fHE muscles are tlie flesh 
of tlie body. Tliey con- 
sist of bundles of threads or 
fibers ; between the fibers 
are blood-vessels and nerves. 

Trie muscles are fastened 
to tlie bones by strong, 
tough cords, called tendons 
or sinews; tliese are easily 
seen, by pulling off tbe meat 
from the leg of a fowl. The 
"lean meat" which we eat 
is the flesh or muscles of 
the animal. 

Cut, carefully, some 

A. 

boiled corned beef, and you B 
can divide it into the little Q " 
threads of which it is made. 
When people have only 




Tendons of the hand. 



58 MUSCLES. 

small, thin muscles attached to their bones, 
they are weak and can not do much work. 

In some parts of the body, fat lies over 
the muscles, and is, to some extent, mingled 
with them. A kind of inner skin, called 
"connective tissue," covers the flesh, bones, 
gristle, and other organs. 

EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION. 

When a boy raises his fore-arm, saying, 
" Feel my muscle," each fiber of the muscle 
on the front of his upper arm has shortened 
and thickened. This pulls up his fore-arm. 

When he stretches his arm, the fibers 
lengthen and return to their natural shape, 
and a muscle on the back of the upper arm 
shortens and thickens in a similar way. 

USES OF THE MUSCLES. 

It is by means of the muscles that we 
keep erect, walk, run, leap, or move in any 
way. The motion of the many muscles of 
the face gives it variety of expression, show- 
ing the feelings of the mind. 

Within the skeleton, in the cavities of the 



VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY MUSCLES. 59 

trunk, there are muscles at work, without 
which we could not live ; for instance, the 
heart, that sends the "blood all over the hody, 
is a strong muscle; the outer coat of the 
stomach has a lining of muscular fibers. 

VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY MUSCLES. 

Some of the muscles, as those of the arm 
or face, we can move when we choose, or will 
to do so ; others, as the heart and diaphragm, 
keep at work without any thought of ours ; 
they will not stop by our wishing them to. 

The first are called voluntary muscles; 
the second, involuntary muscles. 

HYGIENE OF THE MUSCLES. 

Good food, pure air, and proper exercise, 
are necessary for muscular health. Long dis- 
use of a muscle wastes it away. Exercise 
causes new fibers to form and old fibers to 
increase in size. 

But too much, or too violent exercise is 
dangerous, and it is wrong to work so hard 
as to be always tired. Variety of exercise 
rests the muscles. 



60 MUSCLES. 

One who has "been working with hands, 
or Drain, all day, will he rested oy a "brisk 
out-door walk. When one has heen using his 
lower limbs for some time, they are tired; 
if he then sits down, and uses his arms, or 
hands, and thus rests the muscles of his legs, 
or uses his brain in thinking or reading, he 
will feel refreshed. 

Brisk exercise should not he taken just 
"before, nor after a full meal. Exercise out- 
doors is better than exercise in-doors, and 
should he taken daily by all who would have 
good health. 

KINDS OF EXERCISE. 

Playing hall, rolling hoop, throwing hean- 
hags, coasting, skating, and swimming, are 
capital forms of exercise, if not carried too 
far. 

Jumping the rope is not good exercise, for 
it jars the hody too much, -while there is great 
danger of catching the feet in the rope and 
so getting a hard fall, and, perhaps, a hroken 
limb. 

Sawing wood, and keeping the wood -box 



ALCOHOL AND THE MUSCLES. 61 

and coal-hod filled, running home-errands 
with happy faces and light hearts, are 
healthful ways of exercise. 

Cheerfulness is a great help to exercise. 
\Vhistling or singing is a good sign in a 
"working hoy or girl. 

ALCOHOL AND THE MUSCLES. 

Press your finger on lean "beef "before it is 
cooked, and notice how the part touched 
springs back when you take your finger 
away. 

Do the same with fat meat, and you 
will find that a deeper dent stays there. If 
the fiesh in your body, like the fat, could 
not contract, you would not be able to 
move. 

Beer, gin, wine, cider, and all alcoholic 
drinks, tend more or less to change the 
muscles themselves to fat. 

The muscles can not move and work 
properly, when thus changed; not only does 
this fat prevent their healthy action, but it 
is made from waste matter that should be 
sent out of the body. 






62 MUSCLES. 

Beer is especially bad in this respect. 
Beer-drinkers think they are growing strong 
because they grow fleshy. But they are 
only loading t^reir muscles with this use- 
less fat, which hinders instead of helping 
them. Beer-drinkers often die from a cer- 
tain kind of heart disease, called "fatty 
heart." 

The poor heart is not only clogged hut 
weakened by this increase of fat, and more 
and more so, the more beer one drinks. The 
heart bears this abuse as long as it can, and 
then it stops — the drinker is dead. 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

Let us try to see with "the mind's 
eye," the bones, the gristle, the muscles, the 
tendons and connective tissue, the cavities 
of the head, the chest and abdomen with 
their organs; remember, as we look, that 
these are all bound together in one life. 

The most wonderful thing in the living 
body is the mind or soul. We think at once, 
when we see a dead body : " How still and 
cold it is ! " Bodily warmth and motion show 



LIFE AND DEATH. 63 

life, "but what life is, we have no means of 
knowing. 

Our present study will teach us how to 
preserve it, and how to keep our bodies strong 
and healthy. 

So important a subject should receive the 
careful attention of every one, and the rules 
that are of benefit to health ought to he 
followed. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. "What are muscles? Describe their structure. 

2. How are muscles fastened to the hones? 

3. Where is the fat of the body? 

4. What is connective tissue ? 

5. How do the muscles act to move the limbs ? 

6. What is the special work of the muscles on the outside of the 

skeleton ? 

7. Give examples of those muscles within the skeleton ? 

8. Name the two classes of muscles, and define each kind. 

9. What things are needed for the production of healthy muscular 

tissue ? 

10. What are the dangers connected with exercise ? 

11. Is overwork wise or right ? 

12. How may one rest and yet keep at work? 

13. When is brisk exercise unhealthful? 

14. What is said of outdoor exercise? 

15. Name some healthful kinds of exercise. 

16. How does cheerfulness help the muscles ? 

17. State one difference between flesh and fat. 

18. How is the action of the poison, alcohol, likely to affect mus- 

cular tissue? 

19. Does an increase of flesh always mean an increase of health? 

Why? 



64 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 



20. "What is said of beer as a drink? 

21. How may a "fatty heart" be caused? 

22. State difference between living and dead bodies. 

23. What reasons can yon give for studying physiology ? 



CHAPTER VI. 

1. What are the solid parts of the body called? 

2. How many bones are there in the human skeleton? 

3. Mention some of the long bones;— some short ones. 

4. In what manner may an egg be put into a small-necked 

bottle ? 

5. Describe the changes in the composition of the bones from in- 

fancy to old age. 

6. What are the names of the bones of the arm? — of the trunk? 

7. Why should the shoes of children be changed frequently? 

8. What are some of the results from wearing tight shoes? 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

FOOD. 

-iF^OOD is any substance which can be taken 
,A§£ into the body and used for its health, 
life, and growth. We must have daily food to 
repair the daily waste of our bodies, to keep 
them warm, and, in childhood and youth, to 
make them grow. 

SOURCES OF FOOD. 

The earth and the air contain the ma- 
terials on which our lives depend. But most 
of them must be changed in form, before they 
are fit for us to eat. 

We hold in the hand a grain of wheat. 
It has no sign of life ; no leaves show that 
it can drink in moisture and sunlight. Its 
outer husk is hard and dry. It seems no 
more alive than the grains of sand on which 
we are standing. 



■■ 



66 FOOD. 

Put it into well-prepared ground. By the 
help of the sun, air, and moisture, it sends 
out rootlets into the dark earth, green shoots 
break through the soil, and the stem length- 
ens. By-and-by, a graceful plume loaded 
■with the grain that is to make our bread, 
trembles in the breeze. 

Down in the nieadow is a beautiful car- 
pet of green grass. It is a good place for 
play, but you could not eat the grass ; you 
would starve to death if you had nothing else. 

But that grass is growing, in order to 
make food for you. Cattle are feeding on it ; 
it goes into their bodies, and out of it, are 
made the milk you drink so freely, and the 
flesh which may come to your table as roast 
beef or beefsteak. 

We eat, unchanged, a few inorganic sub- 
stances, or substances which have never had 
life, such as water and salt ; but most of 
our food is organic — has been living, — it has 
been prepared by plants from the earth and 
air, or by animals who, by their own eating 
and living, have changed vegetable into ani- 
mal matter. 



MINERAL FOOD. 67 



KINDS OF FOOD. 

Our food is divided into three great classes — 

1st.— Mineral food. 

2d.— Tissue-making food, or food for the 
growth or life of the various parts of the 
body. 

3d.— Heat-making food. 

MINERAL FOOD. 

This includes all inorganic substances that 
we eat unchanged, together with some that 
we get in other kinds of food. The most 
important of these are water and salt. 

If a man weigh 160 pounds, about 140 
pounds of this weight is nothing but water— 
"quite enough, if rightly arranged, to drown 
him." 

Much of this is in the blood, some in the 
muscles, some in the tears, and the rest in 
other parts of the body, as you will learn by 
further study. It dissolves other food, so that 
the body can use it, and helps to regulate 
the heat of the system. 



68 FOOD. 

We must have water to drink, and it 
should be pure and good. Death from thirst 
is quicker and more painful than death from 
lack of food. 

We do not drink all the water which the 
body requires ; for we get a large part of 
the amount needed in the food itself, as in 
fruits and vegetables, the juices of meat, 
milk, and the water used in cooking these. 

PURITY OF WATER. 

Water that runs through lead pipes, is 
very likely to dissolve some of the lead, if 
it stands in the pipes for any length of time. 

Lead is a very sure poison. Care must 
be taken to draw off all the water that has 
so stood, so as to avoid danger. You will 
learn more about poisoned water in the chap- 
ter on respiration. 

SALT. 

Watch the sheep when the farmer "salts" 
them, and see how eager they are for the 
treat. Salt is necessary to man, as well as 



TISSUE-MAKING FOODS. 69 

to the lower animals; but it exists natur- 
ally in most food-materials. A moderate 
amount of it, as seasoning, makes our food 
more agreeable and healthful. 

LIME, PHOSPHORUS, AND IRON. 

The bones need lime, the brain requires 
phosphorus, and the blood must have iron, 
in order to be perfectly healthy. 

But Ave can not eat clear lime, phosphorus, 
or iron. We must get them by eating vege- 
tables which have taken these minerals 
from the ground and made them into ma- 
terial fit for our use, or by eating the flesh 
of animals which have fed upon such vege- 
tables. 

TISSUE-MAKING FOODS. 

Among the most important of these are 
eggs and the different kinds of meat ; they 
are found, too, in milk and the grains. 

Wheat contains more of these foods than 
other common grains, and bread made from 
this grain is most nourishing and best. 



TO FOOD. 

HEAT-MAKING FOODS. 

Tliese are of tliree kinds : fats or oils, 
star en, and sugar. 

THE FATS OR OILS. 

These are found in both animal and veg- 
etable food ; for example, beef and mutton 
suets, the cream of milk, the yolks of eggs, 
Indian corn, olive and palm oils. 

People who live in cold climates need 
and crave much of this kind of food. 

A story is told of some English sailors 
"who prepared a "Christmas tree," as a treat 
for a company of Esquimau children. As 
no suitable tree could be had, they made an 
imitation one, by tying together walrus bones, 
shaping the whole to look as much as pos- 
sible like a tree. 

Instead of candy, they made balls of the 
whale blubber and hung them on the "tree." 
The children were delighted and ate the balls 
of fat, as eagerly as you eat your Christmas 
candies. 

Some food of this kind is necessary; and, 



STARCH. 71 

if one does not like it, lie should learn to 
eat enough of it for health. 

Those who do not eat fats of any kind, 
are usually thin and unhealthy and likely 
to have some serious disease, as scrofula or 
consumption, even while young. Butter may 
he used instead of fat meat if preferred. On 
the other hand, too much fat must not he 
eaten; a naturally fleshy person requires less 
than the average amount. 

STARCH. 

Starch forms a large part of most grains, 
seeds, roots, and unripe fruits. As you know, 
it must he cooked, or, in fruits and nuts, 
ripened, "before it is fit for food. 

Corn-starch and potato-starch are in com- 
mon use ~by the cook and laundress. Rice, 
the chief food of the people of India, China, 
and Japan, is three-quarters starch. Unripe 
fruits, as green apples, contain so much starch 
that they are very likely to make you sick 
if you eat them uncooked. 

All starchy foods, as those from the grains, 
require long and thorough cooking to make 



72 FOOD. 

theni more easily digested and more nour- 
ishing. 

Gum resembles starch., "but is less nutri- 
tious. Some kinds, as gum arabic, are used 
for food in Eastern countries. 

SUGAR. 

Sugar is an important article of food. 
But a person would, in time, starve to deatli 
if fed alone on either sugar or starch.. 

Too much sugar is often eaten in the 
form of candy, and does much harm when 
eaten between meals ; and injurious sub- 
stances are often put into candy, to give it 
color or increase its weight; and the results 
of eating much candy are a "sour stomach," 
"bad breath," and other serious troubles. 

The coloring matter in candies is often 
really poisonous, and even the white candy, 
usually considered the purest, is sometimes 
largely made of "terra alba" (ter'ra ai'ba), a 
kind of white earth. 

Put a piece of candy into a tumbler with 
a little water; if it is not pure, when the 
sugar has dissolved, the terra alba will sink 



MILK. 73 

to tlie bottom of the tumbler in the form 
of a white powder. 

Tims yon can easily prove whether yon 
are eating sugar, or a snbstance that is worse 
than useless, because it clogs the body. 

MILK. 

Milk is the only food provided by nature 
for young children. Since the child lives 
and groves upon it, we should expect milk 
to contain, as it does, the different classes 
of food. 

The cream is fat, or heat-forming sub- 
stance; the curd, which can be pressed into 
cheese, belongs to the tissue-making foods; 
there is enough sugar to give it a sweet 
taste, and it contains lime and other min- 
erals needed to sustain healthy life, besides 
water, of which it has 88 parts in 100. 

WHAT TO EAT. 

Most people, in temperate climates, eat 
both animal and vegetable food. You will 
usually find the three great classes of food 
on the dinner-tables of your homes. 



74 FOOD. 

Water and salt are mineral foods; pota- 
toes and meat, heat and tissue-making foods. 
Most persons crave the fat of "butter with 
the starch of bread. 

Pepper, mustard, and vinegar, are not 
needed in building up the body and should 
he very sparingly used, if at all. Probably 
a perfectly natural and healthy appetite 
would not crave them. 

If the system needs acids, lemons and 
limes, which are more healthful than vin- 
egar, may be eaten. Fresh, ripe fruit which 
generally contains some acid, is wholesome 
when too much is not taken. 

TEA AND COFFEE. 

The value of these to adults is doubted 
by many wise physicians. Certainly they 
are not necessary or safe drinks for chil- 
dren. 

COOKING. 

Health is, in great measure, dependent 
upon the way in which our food is cooked. 
Meat should be boiled, roasted, or broiled. 
Neither meat nor any other food should be 



COOKING. 75 

fried ; "because heated fat hardens whatever 
is cooked in it, making it indigestible. 

To eat or drink what we know is un- 
healthful, "because it tastes good, is not only 
foolish hut wicked. 

A cook who well understands the laws 
of health, will not feed the family on hot 
bread, because it makes a pasty mass in 
the stomach which can not easily he di- 
gested. 

Instead of rich pastry, and cake heavy 
with fruit and spices, which overload the 
stomach and unfit it for proper work, juicy 
meat, mealy potatoes, ripe fruit, and light, 
sweet bread, will be prepared. The latter, 
when it is made from the whole "wheat, 
ground, forms, with the addition of butter, 
and some water to satisfy thirst, a perfect 
food. 

In "bolting," the phosphorus and much 
of the flesh-making part of the grain is lost. 
Fine wheat flour is not so nourishing for 
the brain and muscles, as that flour which 
contains some of the outer portion of the 
kernel. 



76 FOOD. 

FRUITS. 

Ripe fruits, such, as apples, oranges, ba- 
nanas, and berries, make the most healthful 
"dessert/' The skins, cores, and seeds should 
not be swallowed, as they are useless and 
may cause trouble if eaten. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What is food? 

2. State three ways in which it is used by our bodies. 

3. What names are given to the three classes of food? 

4. Name the three principal mineral foods. 

5. Do Ave need to drink all the water the body requires? 

6. AVhat care should be taken in the use of lead water-pipes? 

7. How do we get salt, lime, and other mineral substances for 

our bodies ? 

8. Name the principal tissue-making foods ; — heat-making foods. 

9. Where are fats or oils found? 

10. Is it necessary to eat fat of some kind ? 

11. How is starch made fit for food? 

12. Why is green food likely to make one sick ? 

13. What are the results of eating too much sugar ? 

11. Show that all three classes of food are contained in milk. 

15. Are pepper, mustard, and vinegar, essential to health? 

16. Why should a cook understand the laws of health? 

17. Why is whole wheat flour better food than finely bolted flour? 




CHAPTEE IX. 

ARE NARCOTICS FOODS? 
IS ALCOHOL FOOD? 

PERFECT food, as we have seen in the 
case of milk, contains water, tissue- 
making, and heat-making materials. 

Alcohol is not a food, for it can not build 
up any part of the "body. It contains no min- 
eral substance, and will not make healthy fat. 

Materials in the blood which should make 
muscles, bone, etc., as well as those Avhich 
should be sent out of the body, are some- 
times changed into useless fat by the action 
of alcohol. The heat of the body is lessened 
by alcohol, instead of being increased. 

IS BEER FOOD? 

Beer is made from water, malt, hops, and 
yeast. Water can be obtained better and 
cheaper elsewhere. The starch of the grain, 



78 ARE NARCOTICS FOODS? 

you remember, was changed into sugar by 
malting, and the sugar turned into alcohol 
by fermentation, thus losing its food nature. 

The gummy substance left after the starch 
turned to sugar and then to alcohol, and the 
hops, may contain a slight amount of ma- 
terial that the body can use. But the amount 
of food in beer is so very small, as scarcely 
to be worth taking into account in speak- 
ing of its effects. 

" As much flour as can lie on the point 
of a table-knife is more nutritious than eight 
quarts of the best Bavarian beer." (Liebig.) 

In lager beer, a man gets one glass of 
pure alcohol in every twenty glasses of lager 
beer that he drinks ; in the stronger beer, 
one glass of alcohol to thirteen of beer. 

There is no truth, you see, in the claim 
that beer makes one stronger. There is no 
food worth mentioning in it, and its alcohol 
does a vast amount of harm. 

IS WINE FOOD ? 

A few raisins contain more nourishment 
than much wine. Sugar in fruit-juice be- 



IS WINE FOOD? 79 

comes alcohol by fermentation; it is the al- 
cohol, which is not food, that the wine- 
drinker wants. Often more alcohol is added 
to the wine made from pure fruit-juice, to 
satisfy the craving for a stronger drink. 

The more sugar there is in a liquid un- 
dergoing vinous fermentation, the more al- 
cohol will it produce. Sweet apples and sweet 
grapes make strong cider and strong wine. 
Currant, gooseberry, elderberry, and other 
home-made wines, sometimes contain even 
more alcohol than the wines of commerce, 
because sugar is added to the fermenting 
juices. 

Cider and these home-made wines contain 
the merest trifle of food-material, and are 
no more "innocent drinks" than port or 
champagne (?ham pan'). The poison, alcohol, is 
there, ready to do its deadly work. 

People not only become intoxicated by 
drinking these wines; but by their use, a 
craving is too often created for stronger 
drinks — that is, those which contain more 
alcohol. 

By drinking a larger quantity of the 



80 ARE NARCOTICS FOODS? 

weaker liquors, the user gets the alcohol his 
increasing appetite demands. This is espe- 
cially true of beer-drinkers. 

IS CIDER FOOD? 

Cider is a fermented drink made from the 
juice of apples. In the open air, at summer 
heat, apple-juice begins to ferment in about 
six hours after it is drawn off from the pulp, 
and sometimes sooner. 

A little juice often remains in the cider- 
mill after a previous grinding. If this fer- 
ments and is allowed to remain, it will act 
as yeast, hastening fermentation in the juice 
of the next lot ground. 

When little bubbles begin to pass through 
the liquid and break at the top, as the froth 
gathers, Ave may know that the sugar is 
turning to alcohol. The bubbles are the es- 
caping carbonic acid gas. 

If the apples are fairly sweet, alcohol 
will form until in ten cups of hard cider, 
there will be one cup of pure alcohol. Thus 
the barrel of cider that may possibly have 
been sweet, when it Avas put into the cellar, 



STIMULANTS. 81 

gains in alcohol every day, until it begins to 
turn to vinegar. 

Cider is mainly water and alconol. As 
tlie latter is a poison, the old custom of con- 
sidering the barrel of cider as important a 
part of the family food as the barrel of flour, 
had no truth for its foundation. 

There is great danger that the cider- 
drinker will learn to crave a stronger drink, 
because alcohol makes those who drink it 
thirsty for more. Many of those who die 
as drunkards in this country, began their 
course at the cider barrel. 

If the people who drink cider for its acid 
taste and effect, would take lemon or lime- 
juice instead, they would get the acid with- 
out the poison of alcohol. 

STIMULANTS. 

The term stimulants,* "when used with 



* Alcohol has "been falsely called a stimulant, "because it some- 
times makes the person who takes it feel stronger, and seem more 
quick-witted and talkative, for a short time. But a reaction fol- 
lows, just in proportion to the amount of excitement there has 
"been, and the person is more or less weak and depressed. 

Whipping a horse causes him to move faster for a while ; yet 
it gives no fresh strength to the animal, hut rather uses up that 



82 ARE NARCOTICS FOODS? 

reference to the human body, rneans some- 
thing which adds to its strength. A true 
food does this. 

People have called alcohol a stimulant, 
"because they were ignorant of its real na- 
ture. It gives the "body no added strength; 
its only effect on pain and fatigue is the 
deadening of the nerves, so that one does 
not realize the disordered, exhausted condi- 
tion of his body.* 

The apparent increase of energy which 
alcohol gives is clue to the partial paralysis 
of a certain class of nerves in the body 
which acts as its "brakes." Alcohol, there- 



which he already possessed, so that lie overworks and is more 
tired as the result. Spurring to increased action without giving 
any food which the "body can use to balance the extra "-wear and 
tear," is not the action of a true stimulant, but is a misuse of the 
term. 

* Suppose, for instance, you measure your muscular strength 
with a health-lift, and then take some of the drink which you 
think will give you power. When you feel strong, measure your 
strength again. The drink has fooled you, that is all. You felt 
that you were stronger than natural ; you find that the narcotic 
has been true to its paralyzing nature and that you are weaker. 

Then, after a time, when the drug has spent itself and you 
feel weak and prostrated, measure your strength once more. Fooled 
again ; the stuff has fooled you twice. When you felt yourself 
strong, you were -weak ; and now, when you feel yourself weak, 
you find yourself really stronger, for your natural strength is re- 
turning.— Adapted from Br. A. F. Kinne. 



ALCOHOL AND WORK. 83 

fore, is not a stimulant in the proper sense 
of that word. 

ALCOHOL AND WORK. 

A vessel coming- from Australia sprung a 
leak soon after starting, and the men had to 
work the pumps all the way home. 

At first, regular rations of liquor -were 
given; hut the sailors soon "began to grow 
weak and tired. Then the captain stopped 
the use of liquor, giving an extra supply 
of food, instead. At once, the men began 
to sleep well and to waken strong and 
rested. 

In spite of the hard work at the pumps, 
the crew were in good health when they 
reached England. The liquor deadened — nar- 
cotized — the nerves which control muscular 
action, and the men lost strength thereby ; 
the food furnished building material for 
their bodies and so increased their working 
power. 

The following statement was made by Sir 
William Fairbairn, an eminent engineer of 
Manchester, England, when at the head of a 



84 ARE NARCOTICS FOODS? 

firm employing between one and two thou- 
sand workmen : 

"'I strictly prohibit on my works the use 
of beer or fermented liquors of any sort, or 
of tobacco. I enforce the prohibition of al- 
coholic drinks so strongly, that if I found 
any man transgressing the rule in that 
respect, I would instantly discharge him.' 

"The reasons for these measures are thus 
stated : 

"'In those foundries in which there is 
drinking throughout the works all day long, 
it is observed of the men employed as work- 
men, that they do not work so well; their 
perceptions are clouded, and they are stupe- 
fied and heavy. 

"'I have provided water for the use of the 
men in every department of the works. In 
summer-time, the men engaged in the strong- 
est work, such as strikers to the heavy 
forges, drink water very copiously. 

" ' I am convinced that workmen who 
drink water are really more active and do 
more work, and are more healthy than those 
who drink alcoholic liquors,' 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 85 

" This is tlie testimony of all accurate ob- 
servers. "—Dr. A. B. Palmer. 

Observation of the effects of alcohol shows 
us — 

1st.— That the healthy action of the mus- 
cles is hindered by the useless fat formed 
through the influence of alcohol. 

2d. — That the nerves are deadened. 

3d.— That the blood is poisoned and dis- 
ease caused throughout the body. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What does a perfect food contain ? 

2. Can alcohol do the work of any of the three classes of food? 

3. How does it act to make one fleshy? 

4. How does it affect the heat of the body ? 

5. Compare the food-materials in beer and bread. 

6. How much alcohol is there in lager beer? 

7. How much in the stronger beers ? 

8. What harm may this do to the drinker ? 

9. How is wine made ? 

10. Do "home-made wines" contain alcohol? 

11. Are they nourishing? 

12. How is cider made ? 

13. How much alcohol is there in hard cider? 

14. Is cider food? 

15. Why do cider-drinkers often become drunkards? 

16. "What acids are more healthful than cider? 

17. What is the true meaning of the word stimulant? 

18. What is its false meaning? 

19. What is the only real stimulant? 



£6 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 



20. Why is alcohol not a true stimulant? 

21. Does alcohol give strength for work? Illustrate. 

22. Give Sir Wm. Fairbairn's statements in regard to the use of 

alcohol and tobacco by the men in his workshops. 



CHAPTER VII. 

1. What kind of meat are the muscles called? 

2. Show how the size of the muscles affects one's strength. 

3. What is the effect of disease upon a muscle ? 

4. How does variety of exercise affect the muscles? 

5. What are the best times to exercise the muscles? 

6. How does an increase of fat sometimes affect the heart? 



OH APTEE X. 

DIGESTION. 

( ^T UiTOER and thirst are cries of the whole 
(S^r body for food and water, though only 
the throat seems to call for the water and 
the stomach for the food. 

Digestion is the preparation of the food 
which has been taken into the stomach, for 
the rise of the body. 

Many wonderful changes must take place, 
before the beef, potatoes, bread, "water, and 
other food which we eat, can become solid 
bone and liquid blood, strong muscle, work- 
ing hand, and thinking brain. 

WASTE AND REPAIR. 

Tearing down and building up — making 
and unmaking — these two processes are al- 
ways going on within us. 

If you stand by a city market, early on 
a summer morning, you may see carts bring- 



88 DIGESTION. 

ing green peas, fresh, meat, milk, and other 
food from the country farms. Other carts, 
at the same time, are carrying off barrels 
of ashes, bones, scraps of food, and other 
"waste matter. They will dump this stuff far 
enough from the city to prevent any harm 
to the people from its decay. 

Work very much like this goes on in 
your body. There are certain vessels whose 
special duty it is to carry the prepared food 
to the different organs, and others that are 
the scavengers of the human system. 

If you should stop eating, you would 
starve to death in a short time ; if you 
should keep the waste matter in your body, 
instead of letting it pass out through the 
skin, lungs, kidneys, and other organs, you 
would die even more quickly. 

ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 

The principal organs of digestion are the 
mouth, gullet or esophagus (esoph'agus), 
stomach (stom' a-e)^), and intestines (in tes'tin&§). 
Taken together, these are often called the 
food canal. 



THE TEETH 



89 



Fig. 13. 



This canal, in a fall-grown person, is about 
thirty feet long. Here and there, beside it, are 
little fleshy bags called glands; these glands 
have the curious power of separating cer- 
tain juices from the blood; 
this is called secretion 

(se -ere' tion). 

It is these juices which 
digest the food. A tongue 
much coated shows that 
the "whole lining of the 
food-canal, as well as the 
part which we can see, is jp |7 ' 
out of order. 

THE TEETH. 

The mouth, with its 
fixed roof and movable 
floor, takes in the food ; 
the tongue, cheeks, and 

The Stomach and Intestines. 1, 
jaWS, mOVe it backward stomach; 3, small intestine ; 7,8,9, 

10, large Intestine. 

and forward, up and 

down ; the teeth cut and grind it. This 
should be well done, because the digestive 
juices can not mix quickly or properly with 




90 



DIGESTION. 



Fig. 14. 



lumps of food. A child has twenty teeth; 

these last for a few 
years, and are then 
pushed out hy the 
growth of others he- 
hind them. This sec- 
ond set numbers thirty- 
two in all— sixteen in 

F c 

The teeth at the age of six and one-haf each j aW. 
years. I. the cutting teeth ; M, the grind- 

ing teeth ; F, C, B, N, the new or second ThOSe m frOllt are 

set of teeth. 

sharp and of use in 
oiting. The hack teeth are "broad and are 

Fig. 15. 





Teeth of one Side. 

much used in chewing; they are fastened 



CARE OF THE TEETH 



91 



Fig. 16. 



into the jaws by two or three roots, while 
the front teeth have each but one root. 

The bone of a tooth is covered with a 
hard, smooth coating, called enamel (e nam'ei), 
which protects it. If this enamel is broken in 
any way, the teeth are likely 
to decay and to cause a great 
deal of trouble and pain. 

CARE OF THE TEETH. 

If you wish to have good 
teeth and to escape the pains 
of toothache — brush your 
teeth after each meal, and 

pick them, if necessary tO re- Vertical section of a molar 

tooth, moderately magnified. 

niOVe particles Of fOOd, With a a, enamel of the crown, the 

lines of which indicate the 

quill Or WOOden tOOth-pick — arrangement of its columns ; 

b, dentine; c, cement; d, 

never with a pin, lest you break p^p cavuy. 
the enamel. For the same reason, never use 
the teeth to crack nuts or bite thread. "Better 
to take pains than to have pains take you." 
It is very warm in the mouth — nearly 
100° by the thermometer, as warm as the air 
on a hot July day. At that temperature, a 
piece of meat would spoil in twenty-four hours. 




92 



DIGESTION. 



If we eat meat for dinner, tlie little 
pieces which, get between our teeth, if not 
removed, will soon begin to decay in this 
warm place, and so injure the teeth and 
enims. 



THE SALIVARY GLANDS. 

Three pairs of glands — one near and be- 
Fu; - 17 - low the ears,* one 

pair under the 
tongue, and one pair 
under the lower jaw 
—aided by other very 
small glands that 
line the inside of the 
cheeks, pour out a 

The Parotid-one of the salivary glands. juice Called Saliva 

(sa li'va), which not only moistens the food, 
but transforms some of its starch into sugar. 

This is the first of the great changes 
which take place in food during the process 
of digestion. You will see how important 




* It is tlie glands under the ears — the parotid (pa r5t' id) glands • 
that swell and are so painful when one has the mumps. 



THE SALIVARY GLANDS. 93 

it is tliat tile work of the saliva should be 
thorougiily done, when you remember that 
unchanged starch does not nourish the body ; 
if not changed in the mouth, it must be 
changed, but with more difficulty, elsewhere 
in the food-canal. 

"Washing down the food," even with pure 
water, "will not take the place of slow eating, 
by which the starch is thoroughly mixed 
■with the saliva and thus changed to sugar. 
Water simply moistens the food so that it 
can be more easily swallowed. 

If the work of the mouth is but partly 
done, as by rapid eating, the other organs 
have more than their share to do ; they may 
soon break down, and their owner suffers 
from dyspepsia (dys pep' si a), or some similar 
disease. 

You may prove that starch is changed to 
sugar in the mouth, by chewing slowly a 
piece of dry cracker and noticing how sweet 
it tastes. 

To say that "the mouth waters," is often 
exactly true. When we think of some favor- 
ite food, especially if hungry, the glands may 



94 DIGESTION. 

send an extra amount of saliva into the 
mouth, as if the food was there ready for 
its action. 

TOBACCO AND THE MOUTH. 

Sores on the lips, and even cancers, some- 
times result from the use of tobacco ; the 
"breath, foul and repulsive, shows the condi- 
tion of the stomach, the tissues, and the 
blood ; the gums of smokers and chewers often 
become spongy, and their teeth are soiled 
and dark, instead of being white and pure. 

The effect of the poison is to make the 
mouth dry, thus causing an extra amount 
of saliva to be poured out from the glands. 
But the constant spitting of the tobacco 
juice robs one of the saliva needed for diges- 
tion, and thus brings on dyspepsia. 

Besides doing this harm to the user, the 
habit of spitting is a very impolite one. It 
makes floors and sidewalks unfit for cleanly 
people to walk on, and endangers the cloth- 
ing of all who are near. 

A man who should spit directly at another 
would be thought very insulting. Is he re- 



THE ESOPHAGUS. 95 

specting tlie rights of otliers, though lie may 
not intend to insult them, when he sends 
the foul juice a little to one side — or where 
they must tread at the next step ? 

In many cases, tobacco acts as the usher 
at the door of the saloon, because the dry- 
ness of the mouth which it produces, makes 
the user thirsty. But it is not a natural 
thirst,— it can not be satisfied by water; for 
tobacco so affects the nerves, as often to make 
one crave another narcotic. 

Those in charge of inebriate asylums say 
that nearly all their patients have been users 
of tobacco as well as of alcohol. 

THE ESOPHAGUS. 

When divided by the teeth and softened 
and changed by the saliva, the food is ready 
to be swallowed, or sent into the esophagus, 
the passage-way to the stomach. 

Look at the throat of a horse when he 
is drinking, and you will see the motion of 
the ring-shaped muscles of this tube. 

Food and drink do not simply slide down 
the esophagus ; a horse often bends his head 



96 DIGESTION. 

when he drinks, so that his month is really 
lower than his stomach. 

The muscles contract one after the other, 
and push the food gently onward. For this 
reason, a juggler is ahle to perform the com- 
mon trick of drinking a glass of water, while 
standing on his head. 

THE STOMACH. 

The stomach is a strong muscular bag in 
the left side of the abdomen (ab do' men). Its 
inner lining has many glands which separate 
from the blood a juice, called gastric juice. 
In this is a substance named pepsin (pep' sin), 
which digests the flesh-making parts of our 
food. 

The next coat contains muscular fibers. 
These stretch and shrink in such a Avay, 
that the food is gently moved from one end 
of the stomach to the other, and so forced 
to mix with the gastric juice. 

Some parts of the food are ready for use 
-when they enter the stomach. These are at 
once taken up by tiny blood-vessels, carried to 
the liver, and then to the heart. The process 



THE INTESTINES. 97 

"by which, food-materials enter the blood, is 
called absorption (ab s6fp'shtin). 

When the work of the stomach is ended, 
the food which is left is a grayish fluid, 
called chyme (kim.) It consists mainly of the 
tissue-making substances and the fats that 
have been eaten. Most of the starch and 
sugar, after being prepared in the mouth, has 
already entered the blood. 

THE INTESTINES. 

This part of the food-canal is a small 
tube, about twenty-five feet long in an adult, 
coiled very closely in the abdomen. You 
will understand it better by looking at the 
intestines of a chicken, when the cook is 
" drawing " it in the kitchen. 

Much remains to be done before the 
chyme is ready to enter the blood. The 
glands of the intestines are helped by tAVo 
other glands which lie in the abdomen, one 
on the right side of the body— the liver, 
and the other toward the left — the pancreas 

(pan' -ere as). 

These send into the intestines, through a 



98 DIGESTION. 

small tube, tlie bile and the pancreatic 
(pan-ereat'i-e) juice, which, with the intestinal 
juices, divide and prepare the fats. 

If the month, or the stomach, has failed in 
any part of their work, these juices in the 
intestines do their best to complete the 
task. They can often do but little, however, 
and so we may lose part of the value of the 
food. 

When fully digested, the milky mass is 
called chyle (kii), and is ready to enter the 
blood. It does this by soaking through the 
thin walls of blood-vessels, and tiny tubes 
called lacteals (la^ teals). 

STEPS OF DIGESTION. 

In a large factory, each man has a special 
task to perform ; the spinners do not attend 
to the loom, the weavers have nothing to 
do in the engine-room. So in the body, each 
part has its own "work. 

The saliva, to an extent, digests the 
starch foods. The gastric juice digests the 
tissue-making foods. The bile and pancreatic 
juice digest the fats. 



MEALS. 99 

If one must eat rapidly, as at a railroad 
station, the meal should "be mainly of meat, 
as that will give strength and need not he 
mixed with the saliva for digestion. 

The heat of the stomach must he over 
100°, in order to digest the food properly. 
Ice-water at once lowers the temperature: 
if taken too freely at meals, the stomach 
must stop working until it can get " warmed 
up " again. Such delays in the process of 
digestion are injurious. 

MEALS. 

Most healthy persons have three meals a 
day, at intervals of five or six hours. Since 
the stomach, like other muscles, needs rest, 
one should not eat het ween meals. The mind 
either helps or hinders the hody: the food 
digests much more readily if there is pleasant, 
cheerful thought and talk at the tahle. 

An old Eastern story tells of a stranger 
who met the Plague coming from Bagdad. 

"You have "been committing great havoc 
there," said the trader, pointing to the city. 

"Not so great," replied the Plague; "I 



100 DIGESTION. 

killed only one-tliircl of those who died ; the 
other two - thirds killed themselves with 
fright." 

ALCOHOL AND THE STOMACH. 

As soon as alcohol enters this organ, it 
is hurried on into the Mood-vessels ; for the 
stomach knows it can not he digested, and is 
useless to the body. But the very short time 
it stays here is enough to cause great harm. 

It can not pass through the thin walls 
of the blood-vessels unless mixed Avith water. 
It needs even more water than was con- 
tained in the liquors which were drunk; 
so it shrinks and thickens the delicate lining 
of the stomach, by robbing it of its moist- 
ure. In health, this lining is slightly red, 
tinged .with yellow. 

Too much blood is sent into many of the 
blood-vessels of even the "moderate drinker," 
and those in the stomach soon become swol- 
len. In the drunkard, the case is likely to 
be still worse ; for sores sometimes appear on 
the Avails of the stomach. In the last stages 
of the disease, almost the entire stomach has 



ALCOHOL AND THE STOMACH. 101 

been tilled with these sores, and the walls 
have become thickened and contracted, so 
that only a narrow, crooked, inflamed cavity 
is left for the food. 

Sickness, thirst, headache, coated tongue, 
feverish pulse, go with these conditions of 
the stomach. . The only possible cure is to 
stop drinking liquor at once and forever. 

There is enough alcohol in .strong spirits 
to harden the tissue-making foods, which 
must he changed to a liquid form in the 
stomach, "before they can he absorbed. 

Alcohol, of any considerable strength, sepa- 
rates the pepsin from the gastric juice and 
prevents its proper action on the food. 

Dr. Munroe, of England, proved this by 
an interesting experiment. He put equal 
quantities of finely-minced beef into three 
bottles. Then into one he poured water and 
gastric juice from the stomach of a calf; 
into another, alcohol with gastric juice ; and 
into the third, pale ale and gastric juice. 

The bottles were kept at the same heat 
as the human stomach and the contents 
moved about like those of that organ. 



102 



DIGESTION 



The following: table snows the results : 



Finely-minced 
Beef. 


2d Hour. 


hth Hour. 


6th Hour. 


8th Hour. 


10th Hour. 


1st. Bottle. 












Gastric juice 
and water. 


Beef be- 
comes 
opaque. 


Beef sep- 
arating. 


Beef much 

less in 

quantity. 


Beef broken 
into shreds. 


Beef dis- 
solved as in 
soup. 


2d. Bottle. 












Gastric juice 
and alcohol. 

3d. Bottle. 


No 
change. 


No 
change. 


Slight 

coating on 

beef. 


No change. 


Beef solid 
on cooling. 
Pepsin sep- 
arated from 
the gastric 
juice. 


Gastric juice 
and ale. 


No 
change. 


Cloudy 
with 

coating. 


Beef partly 
loosened. 


No change. 


Beef not di- 
gested. Pep- 
sin separa- 
ted from 
the gastric 
juice. 



Study this table carefully, and see how the 
clear alcohol and that in the ale, destroyed 
the power of the gastric juice, by taking out 
the pepsin from it. They often have a simi- 
lar effect on that in the stomach, though 
they remain there but a short time. 

SEEING DIGESTION. 

By this time you wonder, perhaps, how 
all these things are known, when the stom- 
ach is covered up in our bodies. 



TOBACCO AND THE STOMACH. 103 

Some of tliem tlie doctors have learned 
"by studying the stomachs of dead persons. 
But there has been one good chance to look 
into a live man's stomach and see what was 
going on there. 

In 1822, a man named Alexis St. Martin, 
was shot in his left side. When the wound 
healed, it left a hole in his stomach, partly 
closed by a fold of the inner lining. This 
could be pushed aside, so that one could look 
directly into the stomach. 

By this means the doctor who had charge 
of him, learned much about the digestion of 
food, and the effects of alcohol upon the 
stomach. Later experiments upon the stom- 
achs of living men and of the lower animals, 
have taught us much more on this sub-, 
ject. 

TOBACCO AND THE STOMACH. 

As already said, the nicotine of tobacco is 
almost sure to cause sickness of the stomach 
and vomiting, in those who are just begin- 
ning to use the poison. It injures the lining 
of the stomach, hinders the now of the gas- 



104 DIGESTION. 

trie juice, and, in this manner, seriously inter- 
feres with digestion. 

Dr. B. W. Richardson says : " One who 
smokes a pipe is very likely to have dys- 
pepsia." 

OPIUM, CHLORAL, AND THE STOMACH. 

The stomach of the opium-eater, and of 
the user of chloral, soon has its digestive 
power impaired. 

OTHER ORGANS OF THE ABDOMEN. 

THE LIVER. 

This is the largest organ in the body and 
one of the most important. It fills the whole 
of the right and upper side of the abdomen. 
One part of its work is to secrete the bile, 
or gall, used in digestion. 

This juice, when not needed, is stored in 
a' little sac, called the gall-bladder. It is of 
a dark yellow color, and "bitter as gall" is 
a common proverb. 

The liver also changes, in some way not 
clearly understood, the chyme brought to it 



ALCOHOL AND THE LIVER. 105 

from tlie stomach., aids in the manufacture 
of blood, and in the preparation of worn- 
out materials for removal from the body 

ALCOHOL AND THE LIVER. 

While we can not fully explain all its ac- 
tions, we know that diseases of the liver affect 
all the other organs. 

More alcohol goes to the liver and brain 
than to any other parts of the body. By it, 
the gall may be changed from yellow to 
green or black, and from a thin fluid to a 
thick one. 

The liver itself often becomes twice its 
natural size ; in other cases, it i's filled with 
useless fat like the muscles. When rough 
and shrunken, with hard lumps or knots, it 
is called by the English " hob-nailed," or 
"gin liver." This condition is caused only 
by alcohol and is incurable. 

The coal-heavers of London drink a great 
deal of gin, whiskey, and ale. They seem 
strong, but they often sicken and die from 
a mere scratch. Their blood is so poisoned 
from their diseased livers that the wound 



106 DIGESTION. 

festers, does not readily heal, and frequently 
proves fatal. 

THE KIDNEYS. 

These are two oval glands at the back of 
the abdomen, that carry a large part of the 
waste matter out of the body. 

ALCOHOL AND THE KIDNEYS. 

A serious, because usually fatal, sickness, 
is called " Bright's Disease of the Kidneys." 
This may be caused in many ways ; but it 
is most often the result of alcoholic drinks, 
especially if combined with exposure to wet 
and cold. 

Water is the only fluid needed by the 
body. 

Alcohol robs the body of water and can 
not be used by it as a fluid. 

Water dissolves other foods. 

Alcohol hardens tissue-making foods, and 
has no power to dissolve any of the food- 
materials. 

Water helps the digestive juices. 

Alcohol separates pepsin from the gastric 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 10? 

juice, coagulates it, and thus interferes with 
digestion. 

Water carries the digested foods into the 
blood. 

Alcohol hinders the digested foods from 
entering the olood. 

Water is the proper liquid of the blood. 

Alcohol is injurious to the blood. 

Water satisfies our thirst. 

Alcohol does not satisfy thirst, but creates 
a strong craving for itself. 

Water, taken in proper quantities, is a 
healthful food. 

Alcohol taken in any quantity, injures the 
body in proportion to the amount taken. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. What is digestion ? 

2. What two kinds of work go on in the body? 

3. What would happen if you were to stop taking food? — if you 

should prevent the waste matter from leaving your body? 

4. Why is a child's face plump, and an old man's wrinkled ? 

5. Name the organs of digestion ? 

6. What are glands, and what is their work? 

7. How many teeth has a child? — an adult? 

8. Describe the teeth. 

9. How should the teeth be taken care of? 
10. Where are the salivary glands? 



108 REVIE.W QUESTIONS 



11. What is the action of the saliva on the food? 

12. Prove that starch may be changed to sugar in the mouth. 

13. What are the effects of tobacco on the mouth? 

14. What do you think of the habit of spitting? 

15. What is the relation of tobacco to alcohol? 

16. How do we swallow our food ? 

17. Describe the stomach. Name its digestive juice. 

18. What is the action of the gastric juice on the food? 

19. What is absorption ? 

20. What kinds of food enter the blood from the stomach? 

21. Describe the intestines. 

22. What juices mix with the partly-digested food in the intes- 

tines ? 

23. What is their action on Uhe food? 

24. How does the chyle enter the blood-vessels and lacteals? 

25. State the steps of digestion. 

26. If obliged to eat in haste, what food would you choose? Why? 

27. AVhat is the effect of drinking large quantities of ice-water? 

28. How often should one eat ? 

29. Why should the meal-time be made a pleasant time? 

30. How does alcohol often affect the walls of the stomach? 

31. What is its effect on the gastric juice? Illustrate by Dr. Mon- 

roe's experiment. 

32. Give the story of Alexis St. Martin. 

33. What are the effects of tobacco, opium, and chloral on the 

stomach ? 



OTHER ORGANS OF THE ABDOMEN. 

34. Describe the liver; — the gall. 

35. What are the effects of alcohol on the liver and gall? 

36. What is the "gin liver"? 

37. Why are slight wounds often dangerous to drinking men? 

38. What is a common effect of alcohol on the kidneys ? 

39. Contrast the effects of water and alcohol. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RESPIRATION. 
INSPIRATION AND EXPIRATION. 

|p)LACE your hands firmly against your 
vjy sides, and draw long, deep breaths. No- 
tice that the side walls of your chest are 
not fixed, hut move out and in, as you 
breathe, about eighteen times a minute. 

Hold your hand close before your face, 
and you will feel a current of air upon it, 
as the ribs move in. Breathe upon a mirror, 
and a thin film of water covers it, coming 
from your breath. On a cold winter day, this 
partly freezes, and you say you can " see 
your breath." 

The diaphragm is a strong muscle which 
forms the partition between the chest and 
the abdomen. When the ribs move out- 
ward, this moves downward, and air enters 



110 



RESPIRATION. 



your chest through, the organs of breathing; 
this is called inspiration (inspiration). 

When the rihs move hack into position, 
and the diaphragm moves upward, the air 

Fig. 18. 




The Lungs, showing the Larynx. A, the windpipe ; B, the bronchial tubes. 

is forced out, bringing with it water and 
other waste material ; this is called expira- 
tion (ex pi ra'tion). Taken together, these make 
up breathing or respiration (res pi ra' tion). 



LARYNX AND WINDPIPE. Ill 

ORGANS OF BREATHING. 

The organs of breathing are the nose and 
mouth, through which air enters the "body, 
the larynx (larynx), windpipe, bronchial (bron'- 
Mai) tubes, and lungs. 

LARYNX AND WINDPIPE. 

From the back of the mouth, the air 
passes down a straight tube at the front of 
the chest, called the windpipe or trachea (tra'- 
kea). This is made of ring-shaped cartilages 
and is easily felt through the skin of the 
neck. Its upper end is the larynx, the organ 
of voice. 

The larynx swells out at the front, is 
larger in men than in women, and is some- 
times called, "Adam's apple." It is a tube- 
like box, formed by the union of gristly 
and elastic parts, and is covered by a mov- 
able lid, called the epiglottis (ep 1 giot'tis). This 
is open when we breathe, so that the air 
can enter. When we swalloAv, the epiglottis 
closes the entrance to the windpipe and the 
food passes across it to the esophagus. 



112 RESPIRATION. 

Sometimes we try to swallow and breathe 
at the sanie time ; then this little cover does 
not shut down quickly enough to prevent 
particles of food or drink from going " the 
wrong way." The windpipe can not hear 
this and coughs them out at once, if possi- 
ble; if not, we are "choked." 

VOCAL CHORDS. 

We speak hy means of the air moving 
strong hands of membrane, called vocal 
chords (k6rd§), which are at the top of the 
larynx. The lips, teeth, and other organs, 
help us in talking. 

BRONCHIAL TUBES AND LUNGS. 

The lower end of the trachea separates 
into two branches, one of which is sent to 
each lung; these are the bronchial tubes. 

These tubes divide and divide again, as 
the branch of a tree breaks up into smaller 
twigs. They end in very small sacs, or cells, 
into which the air passes. 

Get a piece of a lung of an ox from the 
butcher, and put it into a pail of water. 



THE CILIA. 



113 



Its little cells are so filled with, air tliat it 
floats like cork. 

Fig. 19. 




Interweaving of the air-tubes and blood-vessels in the lungs. 



a. Windpipe. 

b, c. Eight and left lung. 

d. Heart. 

e, e. Divisions of the great air-tubes 
going to the right and left lungs 



f, f . Arteries carrying the blood from 
the heart to the lungs. 

g, g. Veins, carrying the blood from 
the lungs to the heart. 

h, h, h, h. Air-cells at the termina- 
tions of the air-tubes. 



THE CILIA. 

On the walls of the bronchial tribes are 
minute, thread-like bodies, called cilia (£ii'i a). 
These move back and forth, and help to 
prevent dust from entering the lungs with 



114 RESPIRATION. 

th.e air, and carry it out with the mucus 
(mu'-eus) when it does get in. 

WORK OF THE LUNGS. 

A network of capillaries (-eap'ii la rfz) covers 
the outside of the lung-cells. Having thin 
walls like the cells, the "blood which they 
carry is brought close to the air in the lungs. 
By this means, a strange and important 
change takes place. 

Certain Avaste matters, including carbonic 
acid and water, pass from the "blood through 
the avails of the capillaries and lung-cells, 
into the air, and are breathed out at the 
next expiration. At the same time, the blood 
takes a part of the air, called oxygen (ox'ijen), 
which it needs for its own use. 

It is this exchange of impurities for oxy- 
gen, that changes the dark, blue blood that 
was sent to the lungs from one side of the 
heart, to the bright red blood that is ready 
to nourish the body, and is returned to the 
other side of the heart from which it is 
sent out by the arteries. 

This work goes on all the time, whether we 



HYGIENE OF BREATHING. 115 

are awake or asleep, and without our thought. 
If, in order to breathe, we had to think 
about it, we should have little time for 
any thing else ; and if we forgot it, and so 
stopped breathing, we should soon die. 

HOW TO BREATHE. 

Air should enter the lungs through the 
nose instead of through the mouth. Even 
when running, if possible, keep the mouth 
closed. Fewer impurities will pass into the 
lungs by so doing, and in cold weather the 
air is slightly "warmed before reaching them, 
making one less likely to "take cold." 

Sometimes, as in running, the heart beats 
so rapidly that the lungs can not keep up 
with it and supply air enough for the blood; 
then we are "out of breath." 

HYGIENE OF BREATHING. 

As the muscular walls of the chest and 
abdomen help in the act of breathing, noth- 
ing should prevent their free movement. 

For this reason, garments worn about the 
waist, such as corsets and belts, should never 



116 



RESPIRATION. 



"be tight. They are sure to do harm by 
crowding the lungs, thus partly stopping the 
breath, and by pressing out of place the or- 
gans of the abdomen. 

Pig. 20. 




A, the natural position of the internal organs. B, when deformed by tight lacing. 
In this way the liver and the stomach have been forced downward, as seen in the 
cut. 

Among the many causes of consumption is 
tight lacing. A small, pinched waist shows 
that its owner is either ignorant or foolish — 
perhaps both, 



DISEASES. 117 

The weight of tlie clothing should not 
rest on the hips, pressing the muscles of the 
abdomen, hut be held by shoulder-straps, or 
waists., kept up by shoulder-straps. Round 
shoulders, by pressing the lungs out of their 
proper position, are friends of consumption. 

DISEASES. 

Bronchitis (bron ki'tis) is a disease of the 
bronchial tubes, pleurisy (piu'ri sy) of the 
pleura, the soft shin covering the lungs ; 
pneumonia (nu mo' ni a) and consumption affect 
the lungs themselves, and croup is a disease 
of the larynx and windpipe. 

All these dangers may be largely avoided 
by wearing sufficient clothing, by being care- 
ful not to "take cold," by eating proper food, 
and by living in houses that are dry, clean, 
light, well-warmed, and well-aired, and built 
in healthy places. 

VENTILATION. 

Ventilation is the removal of impure or 
poisoned air from buildings and the supply- 
ing of fresh air in its place. 



118 RESPIRATION. 



CAUSES OF IMPURE AIR. 

In a pleasant village, a few years ago, 
stood a large house, of which people were 
afraid, because all who tried to live there 
sickened, and some of them died. 

But one day, a stranger looked over the 
grounds and house, then bought the estate 
and ordered repairs ; when these were fin- 
ished his family moved in, and were healthy 
and happy there. 

The secret of the change lay in the own- 
er's knowledge of the laws of health. He 
provided a supply of pure water for family 
use, to take the place of that from the old 
well into which the drainage soaked. De- 
caying vegetables, old boards, ancient brooms, 
and other rubbish in various stages of slimy 
rottenness, were cleared out of the cellar, 
from which they had been sending poison- 
ous gases through the house. 

A long drain was built to carry the dish- 
water out into the garden ; and refuse mat- 
ter from the table, such as broken bits of 
meat and skins of fruit and vegetables, was 



VENTILATION OF BUILDINGS. 110 

burned in the kitchen range, not thrown 
out at the back door and left to decay. 

The neighbors no longer feared the house, 
but followed the example of its new owner. 
Gravel and concrete paths and sidewalks re- 
placed those of decaying boards, and piles 
of old saw-dust from the sheds went to feed 
furnace fires. 

At last, t3^phoid fever, diphtheria, and ma- 
laria almost disappeared from that locality, 
because their causes were so largely removed. 

Remember that air, which contains decay- 
ing animal and vegetable matter, is not fit 
to breathe; and that water, under the same 
conditions, is not fit to drink. It is well 
that winds blow poisonous gases away, that 
the falling rains wash the air clean, and that 
plants live on carbonic acid which, in suffi- 
cient quantity, is fatal to animal life. 

VENTILATION OF BUILDINGS. 

Waste matter from the body is always 
passing off by means of the skin and lungs ; 
fires, whether for lighting or heating, send 
out carbonic acid ; sweeping and the tread 



120 RESPIRATION. 

of feet set free dust and bits of wool from 
the carpets. 

Unless great pains are taken to keep the 
air in our houses, school-rooms, halls, and 
churches, fit for breathing, we poison our- 
selves. 

Janitors of churches, school-rooms, and 
other public buildings, should never close 
doors and windows, as soon as an audience 
has passed out, and shut up the poisoned air 
to be breathed over again the next time the 
room is used. 

The air in such rooms in cold weather is 
really carbonic acid gas and other impurities 
"warmed over." Doors and windows should 
be opened on opposite sides, until the fresh 
air has taken the place of that in the room. 

No lesson, sermon, lecture, or concert, can 
be understood or enjoyed by a sleepy, heed- 
less audience — sleepy and heedless because of 
the poisoned air it has taken into its lungs. 

The headache "which we so often have in 
ill-ventilated rooms, is the common result of 
re-breathing carbonic acid and other impuri- 
ties. Thus we see that good studying, preach- 



VENTILATION OF BUILDINGS. 121 

ing, and teaching, as well as good health, are 
dependent on good air. 

Special care should he taken in the ven- 
tilation of sleeping-rooms. Leave a close 
room in which you have spent the night, for 
a brisk walk in the open air— then return to 
it again. 

The air is foul with the heavy, suffocating 
odor of waste matter, the product of your 
lungs, which you have "been breathing over 
and over again during your sleeping hours. 
You felt stupid and tired on waking, because 
poisoned by your own breath. 

Sleeping-rooms should be so ventilated in 
the winter, as well as in the summer, that 
the sleeper may have a constant supply of 
moderately warm, fresh air. This can be done 
by raising the lower and dropping the upper 
sash of a window in a warm room. 

Cold air is not necessarily piire air, and, in 
northern climates, is often too severe in win- 
ter to be breathed at night by any but the 
most robust. 

Two openings are needed in order to ven- 
tilate a room properly— one through which 



122 RESPIRATION. 

the impure air may pass out, and another by 
which the pure air may enter. 

There are many ways of doing this. One 
is to open the windows a little, both at the 
top and bottom, as already suggested. Open 
fire-places are excellent ventilators. Through 
them, a stream of air from the room goes up 
the chimney, and air from without must 
come in to take its place. 

While we must have fresh air to breathe, 
it is not safe to sit or stand in a draught of 
air. 

AIR IN SICK-ROOMS. 

The air of the sick-room should be always 
pure and fresh. To "take the breath" of 
another person is, of course, to take the car- 
bonic acid and other waste matter from his 
lungs into your own. Contagious diseases are 
often spread in this way. 

ALCOHOL AND THE LUNGS. 

Alcohol, as you have learned, is sent into 
the blood as soon as possible. The blood car- 
ries a part to the lungs, and thus you may 



ALCOHOL AND THE LUNGS. 123 

often know from the breath that a person 
has been drinking. 

In passing through them, alcohol injures 
the delicate air-cells of the lungs. The idea 
that this narcotic will prevent consumption 
is a mistake. There is one form of this dis- 
ease, called alcoholic consumption, which is 
caused by alcohol.* 

The drinker looks well and feels well, till 
suddenly comes a "dropped stitch," or a pain 
in the side. Then follow difficulty of breath- 
ing and vomiting of blood ; then a rapid pas- 
sage to the grave ; for medicine, food, change 
of air, all prove useless. 

* Dr. A. B. Palmer says in a recent work, "Science and Practice 
of Medicine" :— " An impression seems to have obtained a footing in 
this country, that the use of alcohol, even in excessive quantities, 
tends to prevent consumption. 

' ' The origin of this opinion it is not easy to discover. It was not 
imported from Europe ; for, so far as I have "been able to ascertain, 
it is not held there by any respectable authority. It is not sus- 
tained by any authenticated statistics with -which I am acquainted. 

"Dr. Peacock, one of the oldest and most highly esteemed spe- 
cialists in lung diseases in London, and Physician to Victoria Park 
Hospital for Consumptives, when told of the American notion of 
the preventive power of alcohol in consumption, and asked whether 
he thought it prevented the disease, replied, that so far from it, it 
was a fruitful cause of a certain form of the disease." 

Dr. Palmer adds, "Too many persons have been made drunkards 
from the notion that whiskey prevents consumption, to make the 
view of its bearings upon morals and intemperance a matter Of 
indifference to the conscientious physician." 



124 RESPIRATION. 

Alcohol injures muscular power, and, as 
the diaphragm and the muscles which move 
the ribs are used in breathing, respiration is 
often imperfect in those who drink. Some- 
times, these muscles are so affected that 
paralysis or death occurs. Life depends on 
respiration, and liquors are the enemy of 
healthy breathing. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. Define respiration, expiration, inspiration. 

2. Give the names of the organs of breathing. 

3. Describe the trachea; — the larynx;— the epiglottis. 

4. How do we use our organs in speaking? 

5. What are the bronchial tubes? — the cilia? 

6. Describe the work of the lungs. 

7. How should we breathe? 

8. How does tight clothing ajDOu£ the waist injure a person? 

9. Name diseases of the organs of breathing. 

10. How may these diseases be avoided? 

11. What is ventilation ? 

12. Tell the story of the "haunted house" and its changed condi- 

tion. 

13. How did the neighbors improve their premises? 

14. How did the result affect the health of the people? 

15. How are air and water often made unfit for use? 

16. Why do buildings need ventilation? 

17. What is said of the air in churches, school-rooms, etc. ? 

18. Why does a close room often give one the headache ? 

19. How should sleeping-rooms be ventilated ? 

20. Is it safe to "take the breath" of another person? Why? 

21. How does alcohol affect the lungs? 

22. Describe alcoholic consumption. 

23. How is alcohol likely to injure the organs of breathing? 



CHAPTEE XII. 

CIRCULATION. 
THE BLOOD. 



tHE "blood is a tliin, "watery liquid in 
which float millions of little round 
blood-disks. As most of these are red, the 
blood looks red. 

Fig. 21. 



i * -\ * *' 





A, blood-disks of 



blood, highly magnified ; B, blood-disks in the blood of an 
animal. 



A French writer says : " Yon feel quite 
snre that blood is red, do you not ? Well, 
it is no more red than the water of a stream 
would be, if you were to fill it with little 
red fishes. 



126 CIRCULATION. 

"Suppose the fishes to he very, very small, 
as small as a grain of sand, and closely 
crowded together through the whole depth 
of the stream, the water would look red, 
would it not ? And this is the way in which 
the hlood looks red. Only observe one thing 
— a grain of sand is a mountain in compari- 
son with the little red bodies which float in 
the blood. 

"In a single drop of blood, such as might 
hang on the point of a needle, there are 
millions of these bodies." 

CLOTTING OF THE BLOOD. 

This rarely occurs in the living blood in- 
side the vessels. But when blood is taken 
from, the body and allowed to stand awhile, 
the disks sink to the bottom and the watery 
liquid floats on the top. 

If the flesh is slightly cut anywhere, and 
the blood flows — as it will, so numerous are 
the blood-vessels — a clot soon forms at the 
mouth of the vessels and stops the flow. 

This clot is really a little plug formed by 
the separation of the parts of the blood, 



THE ORGANS OF CIRCULATION. 



127 



THE ORGANS OF CIRCULATION. 

The heart is placed a little to the left of 



Fig. 22. 



the middle line of 
the chest. Con- 
nected with it is 
a set of tubes 
which carry blood 
to and from all 
parts of the hocly. c 

The red lines 
in the colored 
plate represent 
tubes, called 
arteries (ar'teriz), 
which carry blood 
from the heart ; 
the bine lines 
r e p r e s en t tubes The Heart A the right mntric i e ; b, me u/t ventn- 
called veins which *•' c ' the Hght mride; D ' the left mHde - 
carry blood to the heart.* 

Connecting the arteries and veins are 
tubes much too small to be seen by the 




* The portal vein is an exception to this rule, since it carries 
blood from the digestive organs to the liver. 



128 CIRCULATION. 

naked eye, called capillaries. So very fine are 
these that the blood-disks have to go through 
them one at a time. 

THE HEART. 

The heart is a strong, muscular hag, in 
shape and size somewhat like a very large 
pear. Around it is a loose bag of connective 
tissue. 

The heart is divided lengthwise, by a par- 
tition called the septum (sep'tum), into right 
and left halves. Each half is divided crosswise 
into chambers which open into each other. 

The upper chambers are called the right 
and left auricles (a^ri-eis); the lower cham- 
bers, the right and left ventricles (ven' trf els). 
As the blood can not pass through the sep- 
tum, the heart is really a double organ. 

MOTIONS OF THE HEART. 

The muscular fibers of the heart are so 
arranged as to contract the two auricles at 
the same time. The blood is thus sent into 
the ventricles, which, in their turn, contract 
together and so send the blood from the heart. 



COURSE OF_THE BLOOD. 



129 



• The walls of the auricles are much thin- 
ner than those of the ventricles, since they 
have to send the hlood so short a distance, 
that hut little strength is needed. 



COURSE OF THE BLOOD. 

We may think of the heart as an engine 
which pumps the "blood all through the hody. 




Circulation of the blood in the web of a frog's foot, highly magnified. A, an 
artery ; B, capillaries crowded with disks ; C, a deeper vein. The black spots are 
coloring matter in cells. 

The bright, pure hlood is pumped out from 
the left side through a large artery called 
the aorta (aor'ta). 

An express-wagon, you know, carries dif- 
ferent kinds of goods. It may have machin- 
ery for a mill, a package of money for the 



130 - CIRCULATION. 

bank, a silk dress for your mother, or a toi- 
C3'cle (bi^y-ei^) for you. The expressman takes 
each thing to the right place, leaves it there, 
and then drives away. 

So the blood passing from the large artery 
into the smaller ones, and then into the 
capillaries, leaves one kind of substance with 
the bones, another with the muscles, and 
still another with the skin. 

If, by the right kind of eating, drinking, 
breathing, and other care, we have put proper 
materials into our blood, it "will, in its course 
through the body, leave "what each part needs 
for its work in keeping us strong and well. 

Sometimes, when the expressman leaves a 
box at a house, he takes away at the same 
time, a package, or a trunk, for another place. 
The blood does this, too ; but the material 
which the blood takes away from the differ- 
ent parts, is worn-out or useless matter that 
must be made over or sent out of the body. 

The tiny veins that join the capillaries 
unite, till at last they form tAvo great veins 
which bring the blood back to the right 
auricle of the heart. 



COURSE OF THE BLOOD. 1S1: 

By the time it readies tlie veins, it car- 
ries such a load of waste matter that, it is 
of a dark hlue color, as seen in the blood- 
vessels of the wrist. After eating, newly- 
digested food forms a part of" this venoiis 
hlood. Sent from the right auricle into the 
right ventricle, it is then hurried to the lungs. 

There the "wonderful change takes place 
which you learned about in studying res- 
piration. The waste matter, largely carbonic 
acid, is sent off with the breath, and oxygen 
takes its place. The blood becomes bright 
scarlet again, and fit to nourish the body. 

The veins then carry it to the left auricle 
and it starts on another journey through 
the system. It travels so rapidly, as to get 
back to the heart in less than thirty seconds. 
From two quarts to a gallon of blood, pass 
through a man's heart every minute. 

The walls of the left ventricle are much 
thicker and stronger than those of the right, 
because they have to contract with force 
enough to send the blood through the body, 
while the right ventricle sends it only to 
the lungs. 



132 



CIRCULATION. 



Fig. 24. 



- This, tlien, is tlie coarse of tlie blood: 

Left side of tlie heart. — Pure, fresh blood, 
comes from the lungs and is sent to all parts 
of the body. 

Right side of the heart. — Impure, bine 
blood comes from all parts of the body and 
is sent to the lungs. 

This movement of the 
blood round and round in 
the body, is called circu- 
lation (pir eu la'tion). 

Little flaps of delicate 
skin, called valves, are so 
placed in the heart and 
veins, that if the blood tries to move in the 
wrong direction, the back-flow is prevented 
by the shutting of the valves across the pas- 
sage-ways or tubes. 

Brisk exercise of any kind makes the 
blood flow faster, and thus increases the 
warmth of the body. 

The teamster swings his arms and rubs 
his hands together in cold weather, because 
his blood, being chilled, is moving slowly, 
and he must quicken its flow. 




Valves of the Veins. 



THE PULSE. 133 

The lieat one feels after taking brisk 
exercise is more natural and more healthful 
than that which is obtained from nearness 
to a warm fire. 

THE PULSE. 

In adults, the "blood is sent out from the 
heart about seventy times a minute ; in chil- 
dren, from eighty to ninety times a minute. 

Most of the arteries lie deep in the flesh ; 
but, at the wrist and the temple, they are 
so near the surface that you can feel the 
pulse, or the motion of the blood as it is 
sent through the arteries by the "beating" 
of the heart. 

Usually, if the pulse is much faster or 
slower than the average rate, the person is 
sick ; the doctor counts the pulse of a patient, 
so as to know how his heart is working. 

Rest is as necessary for the heart as for 
other muscles. To secure it, there is a slight 
pause between the beats. Brief as each pause 
is, if all these moments are added together, 
they make about nine hours of rest during 
."the twentyrfour. 



134 CIRCULATION. 

WORK OF THE HEART. 

At every beat, the lieart moves about four 
ounces of "blood. 

Suppose you had a machine which could 
lift very heavy weights. The coal-man brings 
you a ton of coal, and you put it into a large 
box, - fasten the box to the machine, turn a 
crank, and the strong arm of your machine 
swings the box of coal up into the air with 
perfect ease. 

You try a heavier weight — say twenty- 
five tons ; this also is lifted easily, but not 
so high as before. Try fifty tons and then 
seventy-five ; the heavier the weight of coal, 
the less will be the height to which your 
machine will raise it. 

At last, you try one hundred twenty-two 
tons : the machine can lift this heavy load 
only one foot from the ground ; there it 
stops, for there is not power enough to raise 
it any higher. 

The heart of a full-grown man or woman 
uses as much power in moving blood for 
twenty-four hours, as your machine would 



CUTS AND WOUNDS. 135 

use in lifting one lmnclred twenty-two tons 
one foot high.. 

This is what learned men mean when 
they say: "The daily work of the healthy 
heart in an adult, is equal to lifting one hun- 
dred and twenty-two tons one foot." 

CUTS AND WOUNDS. 

The blood in the arteries of the limbs is 
pure and fresh, and in rapid motion ; in the 
veins, it is impure and moves slowly. 

The arteries being deep-set are not easily 
injured; but, if bright, red blood comes in 
jerks from a cut or wound, you may know 
that one is severed. Send for a surgeon at 
once, but do something while waiting for 
him; for there is great danger that the suf- 
ferer will bleed to death. 

Even a child may save a person's life at 
such a time, if he knows what to do. The 
flow of blood must be stopped by pinching the 
artery, as you would stop the flow of water 
in a rubber hose. 

If possible, take a handkerchief, or a towel, 
or any convenient bandage,- and tie it around 



136 CIRCULATION. 

the limb close to tlie wound, and between the 
wound and the heart. Put a stout stick 
into the knot and twist it round and round, 
so as to hold the bandage tightly and thus 
press the artery. 

This will check the rush of blood coming, 
you remember, from the heart, and enable it 
to form a clot at the cut end of the tube. 
Keep the limb raised as you work. 

If the blood comes in a slow, steady 
stream, a vein is injured. Tie a tight band- 
age around the limb, but on the side of the 
cut away from the heart. This will check 
the blood "which is going to the heart, and 
allow a clot to be formed. 

If you can not use the bandage, or if this 
does not stop the bleeding, press a handful 
of dry earth upon the wound and hold it 
there until help comes; this is a "remedy 
that has saved many a life upon the battle- 
field." 

ALCOHOL AND THE BLOOD. 

Often the blood is made thin by the enor- 
mous quantities of __ water, or of beer, which 



ALCOHOL AND THE BLOOD-VESSELS. 137 

are drunk, because of the burning thirst 
caused by alcohol. In case of a severe wound, 
the blood, when it is in such a condition, does 
not readily clot, and there is greater danger 
of bleeding to death. While alcohol is in 
the blood, it acts injuriously upon the vitality 
of the blood-disks, and, when in great excess, 
may cause them . to shrink. 

ALCOHOL AND THE BLOOD-VESSELS. 

The motion of the heart is controlled by 
the nerves, about which you will learn in a 
later lesson. Wherever you find blood-vessels 
—even the tiniest capillaries— there are nerves 
entering into their coats and controlling 
them. 

When in a healthy condition, they keep 
the blood-vessels from stretching or shrink- 
ing, so as to hold too much or too little blood. 

But, if a person drinks gin, "whiskey, wine, 
.cider, or any thing containing alcohol, these 
.nerves are at once - deadened by the nar- 
cotics ; they fail to do their work properly, 
and therefore the elastic walls of the capil- 
laries stretch, letting in- too much blood. :.' ~: 



138 CIRCULATION. 

This is often seen in tlie flushed face, es- 
pecially in the red, blotched nose, of a drink- 
ing man. The unusual amount of blood in the 
capillaries shows its color through the skin. 
This is a pitiful sight, especially when we 
remember that alcohol affects in a similar 
way, the capillaries of the brain, stomach, 
and other parts of the body. 

ALCOHOL AND THE HEART. 

The pendulum regulates the works of a 
clock, keeping them in motion at the proper 
rate ; remove it, and they " run down," at 
once. So there are certain nerves which 
cause the heart to beat, and others which, 
like the pendulum of a clock, keep it from 
moving too rapidly. 

Alcohol affects the heart, by acting mainly 
on this last set of nerves which serve as its 
"brakes." This, like many other of the 
truths you are learning, has been discovered 
by experiments on the lower animals and on 
man. 

When these nerves are deadened, the heart 
beats quicker, but its power is decreased, and 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 139 

tlie pulsations are too feeble to send ont the 
blood properly. The rapid working shortens 
its times of rest, and heart disease is often 
the result. 

TOBACCO AND THE HEART. 

The effect of tobacco on the heart is much 
the same as that of alcohol. The beat is 
quickened, but the power is weakened: se- 
vere pain around the heart is a common re- 
sult of smoking. There is a form of disease 
of this organ, which the doctors call "tobacco 
heart." 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. Describe the blood. 

2. What is said of it by a French writer? 

3. What is meant by the clotting of the blood? 

4. Name and locate the organs of circulation. 

5. Describe the heart;— its motions. 

6. State the course of the blood. 

7. What does the blood carry to every part of the body? 

8. What does it take away ? 

9. What kind of blood is in the right side of the heart? 

10. How is the blood changed in the lungs? 

11. What kind of blood is in the left side of the heart? 

12. What is meant by circulation ? 

13. What is the use of the valves in the heart and veins? 

11. What is the effect of exercise on the motion of the heart? 

15. What is the pulse? 

16. ^ow often does it beat in children?— in adults? 



140 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 



17. Why does the doctor count the pulse of a patient? 

18. When does the heart rest ? 

19. Compare the daily work of the heart with that of a lifting- 

machine. 

20. How may you know whether an artery or a vein has been 

cut? 

21. If an artery, how would you stop the flow of blood? — if a 

vein ? 

22. In what way is alcohol likely to injure the blood? 

23. How does tobacco affect the heart ? 



GHAPTEE XIII. 

THE SKIN. 
CUTIS AND CUTICLE. 

fHE skin has two layers. The lower one 
is called the cutis (-cu' tis), or true skin ; 
the upper one, the cuticle (-cu' ti -ei^). These 
layers never interfere with muscular motion, 
for they cover the flesh more nicely than 
the finest glove fits the hand. 

At the lips and nose, this covering changes 
to a softer and more delicate one, called the 
mucous membrane (mem'bran), which extends 
into the body and forms the lining of most 
of its organs. 

THE CUTI S. 

The inner, or true skin, is full of nerves 
and blood-vessels ; it has, also, weak muscular 
fibers, by means of which the skin is some- 
times "puckered" into "goose-pimples," or 
the hair- made to "stand on end." 



142 



THE SKIN. 



On the palm of your hand and the ends of 
your fingers, you can see little ridges called 
papillae (pa pirie). These contain so many of 
the tiny nerves by which news is carried to 
the brain, that our hands are the chief or- 
fig. 25. gans of touch. In the ab- 

sence of other senses, es- 
pecially that of sight, one 
learns to rely upon the sense 
of touch. The blind read 
by passing their fingers or 
lips over raised letters. 




f» THE CUTICLE. 

We could not bear to 
touch the nerve-ends di- 
rectly, for that would give 
pain in the hands almost as 
severe as the toothache. 

The cuticle covers the cu- 
tis and protects the nerves. 
It is made of hard, dry 
scales and becomes thicker 
by use, as on the hands of the blacksmith, or 
on the feet of a barefoot boy. Its scales rub 



A, a perspiratory tube with its 
gland ; B, a hair uith a muscle 
and two oil-glands; C, cuticle; 
D, the papillce ; and E, fat-cells. 



THE PERSPIRATION. 143 

off on our under-clothing, and the sheets of 
our "beds. In a "blister, bloody or watery mat- 
ter forces itself between the two layers of the 
skin. 

THE PERSP I RATION. 

When a workman comes in from the hay- 
field on a hot August day, his face is covered 
with drops of water; so is yours after a run, 
and you say, you are "sweaty." 

This sweat, or perspiration, is a part of the 
waste matter which must be sent out of the 
body. It oozes through very small holes in 
the skin, called pores — so small that you can 
not see them without a magnifying glass. 
They are the mouths of small tubes that ex- 
tend through the skin, the lower end of 
each being coiled into a tiny ball. 

They are most numerous in the soles of 
the feet, the arm-pits, the palms of the 
hands, and the forehead. If all these drains 
of the body were straightened out and laid 
end to end, they would make a line more 
than three miles long. 

Perspiration is at all times passing off 



1.44: . :_THE. SKIN. ■...._ 

through the pores ; but we notice it only 
when there is enough to form drops. It 
cools the body, and suddenly to stop perspir- 
ing is one of the first symptoms of heat- 
stroke or sun-stroke. 

Mixed with the water of the sweat is 
waste matter from the body. The skin is 
thus one of our most important scavengers, 
and garments which prevent the perspiration 
from passing away into the air, are not 
healthful ; the feet become damp and cold, 
if rubber overshoes which keep in the moist- 
ure, are worn for any great length of time. 

A little boy was once covered with gold- 
leaf to represent an angel in a festival. This 
kept the perspiration from leaving his body, 
and he died in a few hours. 

THE OIL-GLANDS. 

The skin is kept smooth and soft by an 
oily substance sent out from little sacs in 
the cutis, called oil-glands. A similar oily 
material moistens and keeps the hair glossy. 

The oil or sebaceous (seba'shus) glands are 
quite^ large on the face, and sometimes the 



THE HAIR AND NAILS. 145 

matter in them hardens and dries. When 
their months are open, particles of dirt min- 
-gle with the oily matter, and they become 
dark-colored and are often called "worms." 
They can then he easily pressed ont and the 
black spots removed. 

COMPLEXION. 

Small grains of coloring-matter on the 
lower side of the cuticle, canse the different 
colors of the skin. When these collect in 
spots, the skin is freckled. 

THE HAIR AND NAILS. 

These grow from the cuticle; Each hair 
has a tiny sac, or fold of skin, at its root. 
The nails protect the ends of the fingers, and 
grow rapidly. 

You may easily prove this, by making a 
little mark near the base of one of them, 
and "watching it from day to day. 

The nails should always be kept clean and 
well-cut ; not bitten nor broken off. Finger- 
nails, black with needless dirt under the ends, 
are not the mark of a gentleman or a lady. 



146 THE SKIN. 



BATHING 



The sweat-tubes will not work properly 
if dirt is allowed to clog or close the open- 
ings. Bathing, therefore, is very necessary 
to the health of the "body. 

For most strong, well persons, the best 
time for a hath is just after rising. The 
water used may he cold, or slightly warm. 
If hot water is used, a dash of cold water 
at the close of the hath, with vigorous rub- 
bing, will prevent the tired feeling that 
would otherwise follow. 

Cold water drives the blood away from 
the skin for an instant; but it comes back 
when the surface is briskly rubbed, giving 
a delightful warmth and glow to the body. 

A healthy person need not be at all chilled 
by a cold bath. Uncover only a small part 
of the body at a time, and "wash rapidly and 
rub well with a coarse towel. If the bath 
is thus taken, and each part covered as soon 
as it is dry and warm, no chill will be felt. 

All should bathe at least twice a week, 
and soap is needed on the whole body at 



DISEASES TAKEN BY THE SKIN. 14=7 

least once a week, to remove the oily matter 
that has dried upon the skin. 

The old idea that it must not he used upon 
the face is a mere whim. When needed for 
cleanliness, use it on the face as freely as on 
any other part of the "body. 

DISEASES TAKEN BY THE SKIN. 

There is danger in using many of the 
cheap toilet soaps, since they are sometimes 
made from the fat of diseased animals, and 
diseases may thus be taken into the system 
through the pores of the skin. 

Soldiers who want to shirk duty, some- 
times put a piece of tobacco under each arm- 
pit. The poison passing through the pores 
soon sickens them, and the surgeon sends 
them to the hospital. 

Painters and operatives in lead works, are 
often made sick by little particles of the 
lead which they handle, entering the pores 
and poisoning the blood. 

Face-powders, hair-dyes, and eye-washes, 
do great harm in the same way. Good 
health is the best cosmetic (<eo§ met' i-e). Noth- 



148 THE SKIN. 

ing else will give such a clear complexion^ 
rosy cheeks, and brilliant eyes. Beauty is 
much more than "skin-deep." 

THE SUN. 

Sunlight is necessary for the health of 
the skin, as well as for all the other parts 
of the "body. In many homes, the closed 
blinds that keep the carpets "bright, keep the 
people who live behind them, faded and pale. 

The trees around a house often shade it 
so heavily that it is dark and damp. Plants 
growing in cellars have white, sickly leaves; 
people living in the dark, lose strength of 
"body and mind, as well as color. 

The sunlight should not he shut out from 
rooms occupied by human beings, except in 
times of extreme heat. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. Name the layers of the skin. 

2. What is the mucous membrane? 

3. Describe the cutis ;— the cuticle. 

4. What is perspiration ? — How does it reach the surface of the 

body? 

5. What gives the different colors to the skin ? 

6. From what do the hair and nails grow? 
r 7-. How are diseases taken by the skin ? 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

ANIMAL HEAT. 
USE OF THE THERMOMETER. 

tHE blood in the healthy human body lias 
an average neat of 98°; that is, if you 
should put a thermometer (ther mom' e ter) into 
it as it rashes through its network of tubes, 
the mercury would rise as high as it does 
in the shade on a hot summer day. 

This result can not, of course, be arrived 
at directly ; but the blood-vessels come so 
near the surface that a thermometer held in 
the mouth or in the arm-pit for a few min- 
utes, will show the temperature within the 
body. Summer or winter, arctic cold or tor- 
rid heat, make but little difference in the 
internal warmth, so long as one is well. 

If there is much change in the heat of 
the body, it is a sign of danger ; in fevers, 
for instance, the doctor keeps careful watch 



150 ANIMAL HEAT. 

of tlie internal heat of the patient's body— 
if it gets above a certain point, there is no 
hope of recovery. 

But this heat is constantly passing- off 
through the lungs, skin, and other organs. 
The average amount lost in a day of rest 
would boil about sixty pounds of ice- water ; 
in a day of work, about eighty pounds. 
This loss must be balanced by gain. 

SOURCES OF HEAT. 

The heat of the body results from the 
many changes constantly going on within it. 

The changes which take place in the di- 
gestion of food and in the tissues, the beat- 
ing of the heart, the motion of the blood, 
the movements of the food-canal, the con- 
tracting of the muscles — all the processes of 
the body, tend to make and preserve its heat. 

CLOTHING. 

Woolen under-garments should be worn in 
the winter in northern climates, and many 
persons require them all the year. 

Men who -work in very hot places, such 



CLOTHING. 151 

as foundries and engine-rooms, find flannel 
shirts more comfortable than cotton ones, for 
they protect from the heat of the fire and 
do not so readily get wet with perspiration 
and then allow the body to become chilly. 

Loose clothing in several layers is warmer 
than tight and very thick clothing. The 
feet and lower limbs of children, in these 
days of short pants and short dresses, should 
be clothed with care; thick boots and woolen 
stockings are necessary for their health and 
comfort, during more than half the year. 

A wise doctor often said to his patients : 
" Never allow yourselves to feel cold. If you 
are chilly, put on extra clothing, go to a 
warmer room, exercise briskly, in some way 
get warm and keep warm. Only fools and 
beggars suffer from the cold ; the latter not 
being able to get sufficient clothes, the oth- 
ers not having the sense to wear them." 

Tight clothing chills by checking the cir- 
culation. Keeping the body too "warm by 
overheated rooms or too much clothing is 
another extreme which should be avoided. 

None of the under-garments worn during 



152 ANIMAL ITEA.T. 

the day should be kept on at night ; because 
waste matter from the perspiration, and 
scales of the cuticle, have collected upon 
them ; they should he taken off and spread 
out so as to he thoroughly aired for next day. 

Outer clothing removed at night should 
not he hung in closed closets or wardrobes ; 
there is more or less perspiration on it, and 
this should have a chance to escape. Be sure 
that closets and wardrobes are often aired. 

In the morning, throw the bed wide open, 
and, if possible, give the sheets and night- 
clothes a good sun-bath. A wise housewife 
will not have beds made earl y; but vail let 
thern remain open until noon, or even night. 

The family will be gainers in the fresh, 
sweet sleep taken in beds that have been 
freed from foul matter by the air and sun. 
Night-clothes should be hung up exposed 
to the air when the bed is made, instead of 
being placed under the pillow. 

TAKING COLD. 

By exposure to a draught of air when one 
is heated,, by sitting with wet feet or in damp 






.TAKING COLIL 153 

garments, by going into cold air without ex- 
tra clothing— in these and many other ways, 
the skin is suddenly chilled. The number- 
less little pores at once close, and the waste 
matter can not pass away through them. 

It often tries to. escape by way of the 
inner skin — the mucous membrane of the 
mouth and nose — or by way of the lungs. 
Then we have a "cold in the head" or "on 
the lungs," which may lead to more serious 
trouble if not attended to at once. 

One may guard against "taking cold" by 
bathing the body often, and by rubbing it 
daily with a. flesh-brush or a coarse towel, 
thus keeping the pores of the skin in good 
working order. 

ALCOHOL AND COLD. 

"Bitter cold! must take something to 
warm me up," cries the driver starting on a 
long winter ride. So he swallows a glass of 
whiskey; says, "That's the drink to warm a 
man;" and drives away. But is he "warmer? 

Alcohol is a cheat here as elsewhere. The 
nerves being paralyzed,, the capillaries en- 



154 ANIMAL HEAT. 

large, and an increased current of blood pours 
into those of the skin. This makes a glow 
at the surface of the body, and the man is 
sure he is warmer, because he feels warmer. 

The heat of this warm blood at once passes 
off from the surface, and soon more than the 
proper amount of heat has left the body. 

Try the thermometer— that is a better test 
than the feelings ; it shows that the body is 
really colder very soon after the alcohol has 
entered it. But the deadened nerves can not 
carry the message or sense of cold to the | 
brain, and no effort is made to prevent being 
chilled, for the man does not know he is 
cold. This is the first step toward death, and 
many a drunkard has been frozen to death 
when too much intoxicated to feel his danger. 

When something must be taken to start 
again the slow-moving wheels of life — as, 
when one is nearly frozen to death— a little 
red pepper in hot water is an excellent rem- 
edy. Clear hot water, hot coffee, or ginger 
tea, a few drops of ammonia in water, or am- 
monia (not too strong) held to the nostrils, 
are also valuable helps in such an emergency. 



ALCOHOL AND COLD. 155 

Arctic explorers have proved tliat alcohol 
is worse than useless in helping them hear 
extreme cold. Dr. McRae says: "The moment 
that a man had swallowed a drink of spirits, 
it was certain that his day's work was nearly 

at an end In that terrific cold, 

the use of liquor as a beverage, when we had 
work on hand, was out of the question." 

Until lately, the explorer who had gone 
nearest to the north pole was an English- 
man named Ad^m Ayles. He was proud of 
heing ahle to say there had never "been a drop 
of alcohol in his "body. When in the extreme 
cold of those regions, he hore the hard work 
of sledging and hunting much better than 
the men who used liquor now and then. 

Many of those who drank liquor became 
sick and helpless. When urged to drink 
liquor, Adam Ayles replied bravely : " No ! 
when a boy, I promised my mother never to 
touch it ; and, if I perish in this ice, I will 
keep my word." He returned to England 
alive and well. 

When a detachment of the Russian army 
is about to start on a winter expedition, a 



156 ANIMAL HEAT. ; 

corporal goes tlie rounds to smell the breath 
of each soldier. Those who have been drink- 
ing liquor are sent back to their barracks^ 
since they can not endure the cold march. 

ALCOHOL AND HEAT. 

Alcohol is no better protection against 
heat than against cold.- Livingstone, the fa- 
mous African explorer, has proved that -men 
<3an endure moiv in tropical climates with- 
out it than with it. » 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. How do doctors use the thermometer in sickness? For what 

purpose ? 

2. How does the heat of the hody pass away? 

3. How is more heat supplied to balance this loss? 
■i. What is said of woolen unden-clothihg ? 

5. How should the feet and legs of children be dressed? 

6. What should he done at night with the garments worn during 

the day? 

7. How should sheets and night-clothes he aired? 

8. Is alcohol a good preventive of chills? 

9. Why does one feel warmer after drinking a glass of whiskey? 

10. Is he really warmer or colder ? Why ? 

11. How would you prove this? 

12. Name some good remedies for "cases of prostration from cold. 

13. What do Arctic explorers say of the use of alcohol V 

14. What is done in the Russian army? 

15. What is said about alcohol and heat? 



CHAPTER XV. 

ALCOHOL AND LIFE. 
INSURANCE. 

l HOSE who never drink liquor have a pros- 
pect of living mnch longer than those 
who clo. Many diseases are caused by alco- 
hol, and many more are made worse by it.- 

Of diseases like the cholera and yellow 
fever, iDure air, clean houses and streets, and 
blood unpoisoned by alcohol and tobacco, are 
the best preventives. ; " 

In one season in New Orleans, 5,000 drink- 
ing men died of yellow fever., before the dis- 
ease touched -a sober man; the poisoned 
bodies of the alcohol-users could not resist 
the disease. 

Life insurance companies keep careful 
records, showing how many years different 
classes of men will probably live. Here are 
some of the results of their study in England: 



158 ALCOHOL AND LIFE. 

When a total abstainer is 

20 years old, he may expect to live 44 years more. 
30 " " " " " " " 36.5 

When a moderate drinker is 

20 years old, lie may expect to live 15.5 years more. 
30 " " " " " " M 13.8 

A Q " " « *< << <« << lift M W 

From these records it is plain that those 
who never drink liquor have the best chance 
for length of life, as well as for happiness 
and power to work. 

The President of one life insurance com- 
pany in England says of beer-drinkers : 

"The deaths among them were astounding. 
Robust health, full muscles, a fair outside, in- 
creasing weight, florid faces, then a touch of 
disease and quick death. 

" It was as if the system had been kept 
fair outside, while within, it was eaten to a 
shell, and at the first touch there was utter 
collapse ; every fiber was poisoned and weak. 

Beer-drinking is very deceptive, at 

first; it is thorough!}^ destructive, at last." 

Some companies will not insure the lives 



HEREDITY. 159 

of liquor-sellers, because they know that they 
are so often liquor-drinkers. 

HE R E D IT Y. 

You have learned enough about your body 
by this time, to understand that when people 
are sick, it is generally their own fault ; 
either they have not been taught how to 
care for their bodies, or they are heedless in 
spite of their knowledge. 

But sometimes one is sick or suffers very 
much, because of wrong things that his 
parents or grand-parents did. Does this seem 
strange ? Some one has told you, perhaps, 
that you have your father's hair and eyes, 
but that your mouth and chin are like your 
mother's. 

You have heard of children who were 
quick-tempered, or generous like their par- 
ents. Not only property, but faces and char- 
acter are inherited. Our lives are very 
closely linked with those of our " blood- 
relations," and evil tendencies, as well as 
good impulses, descend from them to us. 

Over in the poorhouse, is a man who does 



160 alcohol and life. 

not know so much as most children four 
years old. He can not learn to read or write ; 
he is an idiot. And this is because he is 
the child of drinking parents whose poisoned 
life-blood tainted his own. 

Many men and women are insane because 
they inherit disordered bodies and minds, 
caused by the drinking habits of their par- 
ents; and the descendants of "moderate 
drinkers'* suffer in this way, as "well as those 
of the drunkard.* 

Some men of great self-control may use a 
moderate amount of alcoholic liquors through 
a long life, without apparent injury. But 
their children arc likely to inherit a stronger 
appetite for narcotics and a weaker will with 
which to control it. 



. - * One of the most serious objections to the use of alcoholic liquors 
ih any quantity, is the taste ir creates, the habit it establishes — a 
taste and habit often transmitted from parents to their children — 
and the very great datiger, by continuance in the indulgence, of 
its resulting in gross, degrading, habitual drunkenness. 

■ Even -if a moderate indulgence had no other evil effect, this 
danger is so great, and the influence of the example on others is so 
bad, as to cause every wise and good man, woman, or child, to 
avoid it altogether. 

Everybody knows it does incalculable harm, and if it does 
no positive good, there is the best possible reason for "total 
abstinence."— Br. A. B. Palmer. 



HEREDITY. 161 

Tobacco and opium produce similar re- 
sults. This is called the law of heredity* 
(hered'ity). It is one of God's laws, and, like 
just earthly laws, helps right living and 
punishes those who disobey it. 

The English-speaking races have descended 
from men who were hard drinkers. Our an- 
cestors, the old Northmen, were famous for 
their wild feasts, at which they drank im- 
mense quantities of mead — a fermented liquor 
made from honey and milk. In the early 

*" Three-fourths of the idiots horn are the children of intem- 
perate parents."— Br. Howe. 

""Where drinking has heen strong in "both parents, I think it a 
physical certainty that it Trill he traced in the children."— Br. Anstie. 

" One more example "which has come under my own professional 
observation, may he useful. A gentleman of position, sixty-four 
years of age, is an hereditary drunkard. So violent is he that his 
■wife and family had to leave him. 

' ' One of his sisters has lost her mind through drinking. When 
drunk, she has frequently tried to commit suicide hy jumping 
from a -window, and hy drowning. Her insanity has so suicidal 
a tendency that she can not be left for a moment alone. She "will 
do any thing for drink — will heg, borrow, or steal, pawn every- 
thing she can lay her hands on, and even essay robbery "with vio- 
lence in the hope of obtaining money to gratify her morbid crav- 
ing for alcohol. 

"Another sister is also an habitual drunkard, who gets into 
fits of ungovernable fury when in drink ; and is dangerous both 
to herself and to others. 

"The fatal legacy in this case "was from both parents. The 
father shot himself when insane from the use of alcohol, and the 
mother was a drunkard. The grandfather was also a confirmed 
inebriate."— Norman Kerr, M.D. 



162 ALCOHOL AND LIFE. 

days of the English, nation, wine and ale 
were every-where used. 

In America, only a few years ago, cider 
and ram were found in the cellar and on 
the table of nearly every farmer; and no 
wedding, funeral, or public gathering of any 
sort, was without its free liquor. 

The ignorance of that time in regard to 
the origin, nature, and consequences of alco- 
hol, is shown toy the fact that the first tem- 
perance pledges signed in this country, pro- 
hibited the use of liquor " save at weddings 
and funerals," and the taking of " alcoholic 
drinks, excepting wine, toeer, and cider." 

The hardy, out-door life which was led toy 
so many of our forefathers, prevented them 
from feeling the full effects of their poisonous 
"beverages. 

The English and Americans of to-day are 
descended from these drinking ancestors, and 
inherit from them a craving for alcohol, and 
are safe from the poison only when they let 
it entirely alone. 

The taking of a single glass of liquor, the 
eating of torandy sauce or wine jelly, may 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 163 

rouse tnis inherited desire, though its po- 
sessor may not have discovered that the 
taint is in his blood ; the appetite, becoming 
uncontrollable, may bring its owner to a 
drunkard's grave. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. Why have those who never drink liquor a prospect of living 

longer than those who do ? 

2. Name good preventives of such diseases as cholera and yellow 

fever. 

3. What do the records kept by life insurance companies prove in 

regard to total abstinence ? 

4. What class of men will insurance companies not insure? 

5. If we are sick, is it usually our own fault? 

6. By the faults of what other persons may our illness sometimes 

be caused? 

7. What physical traits are often inherited? — what mental traits? 

8. How do the habits of drinking men and women affect their 

descendants ? 

9. What is this law called? 

10. From whom do English-speaking people inherit the taste for 

alcohol? 

11. How were liquors used in America, a few years ago? 

12. Why did not our forefathers feel the full effect of the liquor 

they drank? 

13. Is it safe to take "the first glass"? — why? 

CHAPTER XIII. 

1. What are ' ' goose-pimples " ? — papillae ? 

2. Is it safe to wear clothing "which will prevent perspiration 

from passing into the air ? 

3. How are the skin^nd hair kept smooth and glossy ? 
4t. What is the effect of face-powders and hair-dyes? 

5. What is said about the use of soap ? 

6. Should the sunlight be allowed to enter our dwellings ? 



164 REVIEW QUESTIONS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1. Is it -wise to allow one's self to feel cold ? 

2. What remedies are useful in case of being chilled through? 

3. Should we keep our overcoats, shawls, or furs on when we 

come into a warm room ? — for how long a time ? 

4. Why is a man under the influence of liquor not apt to feel 

cold ? 

5. What was the experience of Adam Ayles in the Arctic 

regions ? 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. 

EUSCULAB, action, digestion, circulation, 
and all the work of the "body, need to 
he directed and controlled. This wonderful 
task is given to the nervous system. 

Plants have no power to think or feel: 
cut a tree, and the bark and wood have no 
sense of pain ; the rose is neither glad nor 
sorry when you take it from the stem — it 
knows nothing of what is being done. 

The simplest forms of animal life have 
very little of this nervous power ; one of 
them, the hydra (hy'dra), may be cut into 
pieces, and each piece will form a new hydra. 
But animals which have the sense of feeling 
—those which can be taught by man— possess 
most of this power. 



166 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, 
Fig. 26. 




The Nervous System, A, cer' I brum ; B, cer e bel'lum. 



PARTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 167 

Tlie clog obeys his master's orders ; horses 
are trained to understand tlie slightest word 
of command. The elephant, though huge 
and clumsy, is used in India to "build bridges, 
move and pile heavy logs, and to da many 
other kinds of work. 

But no other animal has so complete a 
nervous system as man ; and so, no other 
animal can think and plan as well. He is 
placed at the head of living creatures, not to 
he a tyrant to torment and destroy others ; 
hut to " protect all harmless living creatures," 
and to treat none with cruelty. 

PARTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

The nervous system is divided into cen- 
ters, cords, and nerves. 

The most important center is the "brain; 
the principal cord is the spinal cord, which 
passes down the hack through a series of 
holes in the vertebrse ; from the brain and 
spinal cord, slender white threads, called 
nerves, extend to all parts of the body. Other 
nerves start from small centers or knots of 
nerve-matter, near the back-bone. 



168 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



NERVOUS POWER 



The nerve-centers are mainly composed of 
soft, gray matter ; trie spinal cord has a core 
of this same gray matter, surrounded hy 
white nerve-fibers. 

What nervous power is, or how it is made, 
we do not know; hut it begins in the gray 
matter, and is sent along the white fibers. 

The centers are often compared to the 
stations of a telegraph system where all mes- 
sages, home and foreign, are received, and 
whence orders are sent out in every direction. 
The cords and neiwes resemble, in the same 
way, the wires along which messages are 
sent. 

TH E BRAIN. 

The brain is protected from injury by the 
strong bones of the skull, and by three cov- 
erings or coats. The outer coat is very tough ; 
the inner ones are soft and delicate. The 
two principal parts of the brain are called 
the cerebrum (ger^e brum) and cerebellum 

($er e bel'lum). 



THE CEREBRUM. 



169 



THE CEREBRUM 



a 




The cerebrum is the part of the brain in 
the upper, middle, and front of the head. 
It has gray mat- 

Fig. 27. 

ter on the out- 
side, and white 
nerve-fibers on 
the inside. 

The gray mat- 
ter is coiled hack 
and forth, so that 
a great deal is 
packed away in 
this part of the 
skull. You may 
get a good idea of 
these wrinkles or 
foldings, by look- 
ing at a piece of brain coral, or at the meat 
of an English "walnut. 

This is the part of the brain by means of 
which we think ; and wise thinking strength- 
ens it, as proper exercise strengthens the 
muscles. The greater the power and activity 




Surface of the Cer'e brum. 



170 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, 



of tlie mind, the more wrinkled and coiled 
will the gray matter of the cerebrum "become. 
If this part of the brain is taken away 
from a pigeon (pij'un), it becomes stupid, and 
takes no notice of things around it. 



Fig. 28. 




Pigeon from which the cerebrum has been removed. 



THE CEREBELLUM. 

In the lower, back part of the skull, is 
the smaller division of the brain called the 
cerebellum. 

Like the cerebrum, the gray matter is on 
the outside ; the white matter inside ; but 
the coilings of the gray matter are finer, 



THE CEREBELLUM. 



171 



more like layers or foldings ; and the white 
Goers extend into the gray, in such a man- 
ner that they look somewhat like the branch 
of a tree — this is sometimes spoken of as 
"the tree of life." 

Fig. 29. 




Pigeon from which the cerebellum has been removed. 



The special work of the cerebellum is not 
fully understood. If it is injured, one can 
not use his body as he wishes ; the messages 
of motion are not sent correctly, the muscles 
do not obey his will, and he acts as if in- 
toxicated. 

If the cerebellum is taken from pigeons, 



172 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



tliey make "" uncertain, sprawling move- 
ments." 



Fig. 30. 



THE SPINAL CORD. 

At the very base of the brain, is an im- 
portant mass of white and 
gray nerve-matter, situ- 
ated at the upper end of 
the spinal cord ; it is often 
called the "vital knot," 
because one nerve which 
starts from this center, 
controls the act of breath- 
ing. 

If the knot is injured 




Section of the Spinal Cord. 



a, b. Section of the cord. 

c, c, c, c. Spinal nerves. 

d, d. d, d. Posterior or sensory roots 
of the spinal nerves. 

e, e, e, e. Anterior or mot or y roots liear this liei'Ve, as is the 
of the spinal nerves. 

case "when one's neck is 
broken, respiration stops and death occurs 
instantly. This part of the brain is so placed 
as to be protected as fully as possible, and 
it is rarely injured except in death by hang- 
ing. 

The spinal cord, as has been said, extends 
down the trunk through the backbone. It 
is a white cord, about as large as the end 



THE SPINAL NERVES. 173 

of a man's little finger ; down its whole 
length, front and "back, are two deep fur- 
rows. 

THE SPINAL NERVES. 

Thirty-one pairs of nerves pass off from the 
sides of the spinal cord, divide and re-divide, 
and send tiny nerve-threads all over the bod} T . 
Touch the skin ever so lightly and you feel 
the touch, because the cutis is full of nerve- 
ends. 

NERVE-TUBES. 

Each nerve appears to be a bundle of 
small fibers ; when viewed under a strong 
microscope, the separate fibers are seen to 
be really very small tubes. 

These nerve-tubes do not branch off from 
larger nerves as the smaller arteries branch 
from the larger, but lie side by side, bound 
together by delicate membranes. 

Each tiny nerve-tube is distinct from the 
others as it passes into the brain. Were it 
otherwise, we should often be confused and 
often in danger. 

If the nerve-tubes from your first finger 



174 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

were to unite with those froin your thumb, 
so as to make one large tube, you could not 
tell, unless you used your eyes, whether you 
pricked your finger or your thumb. 

If tlie nerve-tubes from the feet united 
to make one large tube, you could not know 
by feeling, alone, which foot was cold, cut, 
or bruised. But when a fly lights on your 
hand, you do know perfectly well that he is 
not on your face ; the nerves carry word of 
his presence to the part of the brain which 
has to do with your hand. 

KINDS OF NERVES. 

In studying the heart, you learned that 
two sets of nerves were necessary to its 
proper "beating." So the lungs, brain, and 
other organs are kept at work by certain 
nerves and held from over-action by other 
nerves which serve as "brakes." 

By other sets of these signal-lines, we 
know about the world around us. We can 
not hear with our eyes, nor smell with our 
ears ; for the nerves of sight are affected by 
light only, those of hearing by sound only. 



FIBERS OF FEELING AND OF MOTION. 175 

By the nerves of smell, we perceive differ- 
ent odors ; "by those of taste, we enjoy food 
and drink, and dislike some medicine and 
various disagreeable things ; while hy those 
of touch, we are told about the various 
objects with which we come in contact — as, 
for example, whether they are hard or soft, 
rough or smooth. 

In the cutis, too, lie the ends of those 
fibers, or tubes, by means of which we receive 
our sensations of pain ; and, at the same 
time, other nerves give us the power of 
muscular motion. 

FIBERS OF FEELING AND OF MOTION. 

The two sets of nerve-tubes last mentioned, 
though they look exactly alike, have two 
kinds of work to do. However closely they 
may be bound together, each performs its 
own task and never interferes with that of 
its neighbor. 

One set— the fibers of feeling— carries mes- 
sages to the brain from the body ; another 
set — the fibers of motion — bring messages 
from the brain to the muscles. 



176 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



HOW THE NERVES WORK. 

Tile nerve-fibers are like those telegraph, 
lines on which, messages travel in a single 
direction only : on one wire,^ all the telegrams 
are sent to the central office ; whilst on the 
other, they are received from the central 
office. 

When the finger touches a hot iron, nerve- 
ends of the fibers of feeling send the message 
along up the arm into the spinal cord, and 
thence to the brain, which feels the pain. 
At once, the brain sends back over the mo- 
tion-fibres a message to the muscles in the 
finger, telling them to remove it from the 
iron. 

All this is done in the twinkling of an 
e3^e; and the pain, which seems to be in the 
finger, is really perceived in the brain ; and 
yet the brain itself may be injured severely 
without suffering, though it is the seat of 
all pain. 

An iron bar was once driven through the 
upper part of a man's head and he felt no 
pain. 



INJURIES OF THE NERVES. 177 

INJURIES OF THE NERVES. 

The fibers of motion and of feeling look 
exactly alike, as has been said. The large 
nerve of the arm or leg is formed of many of 
these fibers "bound together. Near the spinal 
cord, it is divided ; all of its motion-fibers 
come from the front part, all of its feeling- 
fibers from the back part of the cord. 

In time of war, soldiers often cut the tele- 
graph lines leading to the enemy's camp ; 
then no message can be given, or sent, till the 
line is repaired. 

In a similar way, if the back part of the 
spinal cord, just where the nerve goes off to 
the right foot, is injured, the sense of feeling 
is gone in the foot. 

You may prick it, or burn it, as much as 
you please ; no pain will be felt, because the 
nerve fiber which should carry the message 
of trouble to the brain is injured. 

If the front part of the spinal cord is in- 
jured at the same place, the order to move 
the foot may start from the brain; but the 
muscles do not obey, because they do not re- 



178 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



ceive it. Tlie message can not get by the 
broken place on the line. This is how we 
know there are two sets of fibers connected 
with the brain-center. 



Fig. 31. 




Nerves of the face and neck. 
o, J, Nerve of the face. d, Nerve of the forehead. 

Have you ever had your foot soundly 
" asleep"? You had held it in such a position 
that the nerves were pressed, and this partly 
paralyzed them, so that, for a moment, the 
foot could scarcely move or feel. 



THE CRANIAL NERVES. 179 

If the spinal cord be divided, or seriously 
diseased, or pressed upon, there is no feeling 
or motion in any part of the "body below the 
point of injury. This is called paralysis (pa- 
pal' y sis), and is quite common. 

THE CRANIAL NERVES. 

The nerves which start directly from the 
brain are called the cranial (-era'niai) nerves. 

Among these are the nerves of sight, 
smell, hearing, and taste ; those which move 
the muscles of the face ; and those which con- 
trol digestion,^ respiration, and the motions 
of the heart. 

From one of these nerves, a number of 
little branches go to the center of each 
tooth, and, in case a tooth decays so that 
either the food or the air can reach them, 
we suffer severe pain. 

Sometimes the dentist " kills the nerve " 
by putting against it creosote, or some other 
substance. Then he takes out a piece of the 
little white thread, and fills the cavity with 
gold, or some other material, to prevent fur- 
ther decay. 



180 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, 



THOUGHT. 

But tlie "brain lias otlier important work 
to do besides merely keeping us alive. It is 
trie organ of trie mind. By it, we think and 
reason ; now, we do not know ; but God lias 
given us this wonderful instrument, and with 
it we may do either good or evil. 

Eveiw time one does right, it is easier for 
him to keep on doing right, because he 
strengthens that part of the brain which is 
used by the good powers of his mind. 

Every time he does wrong, he weakens 
this part, and strengthens the part used by 
the evil powers of his mind, making it much 
easier to do wrong the next time. Thus we 
form habits that control us. 

In this way, boys and girls who are mean 
and cruel, whose thoughts are impure and 
lives untrue, make the men and women who 
do the mischief and sin of the "world ; while 
those "whose lives are pure and true, make 
the men and women who are honored and 
loved. 

One reason why it is almost impossible 



HYGIENE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 181 

for a drunkard to reform, is, because alcohol 
has deadened that part of the "brain which 
he needs to use in order to master his appe- 
tite. 

The best quality of brain, as in the case 
of gifted men and women, seems to suffer 
the most. 

HYGIENE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

Healthy blood is needed in order to have 
healthy nerves; and proper food, fresh air, 
and exercise, are necessary to healthy blood. 

To keep the mind strong and happy, we 
must observe the rules of right living, and 
so protect the brain. When the mind is hard 
at work, an extra supply of blood is sent to 
this organ ; if it is over-worked, too much 
blood and energy are thus taken from other 
parts of the body and they become weak and 
feeble. Neither brain-work nor muscle-work 
must be neglected, for both are important. 

Rest must also be given to this busy organ, 
and quiet, dreamless sleep is the best brain- 
rest. Sleeplessness is often one of the first 
signs of insanity, that terrible disease in 



182 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

which the mind loses, naore or less, its con- 
trol over the brain. 

Blows on the head are dangerous, and 
children in their play, as well as older per- 
sons, should never give them. 

Causes which weaken other parts of the 
"body, weaken the brain as well. Hence, im- 
pure air, unwholesome, ill-cooked food, un- 
suitable clothing, lack of cleanliness — all 
these tend to injure not only the brain, but 
the whole nervous system. 

The lack of properly-prepared food and 
other unhealthful ways of living, often lead 
men and women to use alcohol, tobacco, and 
opium, to deaden their feelings of restless 
discomfort. 

ALCOHOL AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

You have learned how alcohol injures the 
organs of digestion, so that the food we eat 
can not make as good blood ; and how it 
unfits the blood for the best use of the 
body. 

About one-fifth of all the blood in the 
body is in the brain. Through and around 



ALCOHOL AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 188 

the soft gray matter, in and out among the 
white fibers, are the tiny "blood-vessels. 

You know, already, that these enlarge 
from the drinking of alcohol ; the blood then 
sometimes stagnates, and, at other times, 
rushes through them too violently. No won- 
der a headache so often follows the glass of 
liquor. 

Sometimes an artery hursts, because its 
walls have been weakened by alcohol so that 
they can not bear the extra strain ; the blood 
flows out, and death occurs at once. This is 
called apoplexy (ap' o piex f), and may result 
from other causes than the use of alcohol. 

But this is not all. The brain asks for 
good blood, but it gets injured and unhealthy 
blood. Of course the brain can not be healthy 
when made of poor material. 

A boy can not whittle well with, a broken, 
rusty knife ; a musician can not bring sweet 
music out of a piano "whose strings are not 
in tune ; and the mind can not do good 
thinking, if it has to work through an un- 
healthy brain. 

A large share of the water in the body is 



184 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

contained in the brain and the nerves, and 
alcohol unites with this water, taking it 
away from the parts where it is needed. More 
alcohol goes to the brain of the drinking 
man, than to any other organ except the 
liver ; its effect on the nerve-substance is 
deadening— paralyzing — as you have learned. 

The drinking man may not feel pain from 
his inflamed stomach, partly because it has 
but few nerves of feeling, and partly because 
these are out of order and fail to carry mes- 
sages correctly. Supposing that the alcohol 
has been a good friend, he satisfies the crav- 
ing it has caused, by another dose. 

Perhaps he takes it under the name of 
"Bitters," or "Patent Medicine," ignorant of 
the fact that most of these are only extracts 
of herbs mixed with alcohol, and that the 
harm done by the alcohol more than bal- 
ances the good gained from the herbs. 

When the brain is partly paralyzed by this 
narcotic, the man does not know what he 
is doing— his power of thought is deranged, 
and that of correct thought is gone — he is 
"crazy with liquor." He believes himself 



ALCOHOL AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 185 

stronger in body and mind ; lie sometimes 
talks faster but thinks less wisely.* 

" The word of a drunkard, especially "with 
regard to his drinking habits, can not be 
trusted. An old, but true, proverb says : ' A 
drunkard is a liar.' His love of truth seems 
entirely destroyed. And 'the tendency to 



*" Among the immediate effects of a few doses of alcohol, are 
drunkenness, and, in rarer cases, crazy drunkenness and alcoholic 
convulsions or fits. 

" Still further use of the poison, brings on delirium tremens 
(de Hr' 1 iim tre' mens), and various maladies of the stomach, liver, 
kidneys, lungs, and other organs of the body ; insanity, and another 
disease of the nervous system, called dipsomania (dip so ma' ni a) ; the 
latter is an intense craving for alcoholic or other narcotic sub- 
stances. 

"This uncontrollable desire for liquor does not appear in those 
who have never used alcoholic drinks ; but sometimes the first in- 
dulgence awakens the desire. With others, only a longer use -will 
produce it. 

"Most persons, in their earlier "indulgence, think themselves 
capable of controlling their habits, and indulge -without appre- 
hension of danger. 

"Even when that danger is apparent to others, it may not be 
to them, until the desire and the habit are too strong, the "will too 
weak, or the indifference to consequences too great for any effectual 
effort to change this course. 

"The longer the indulgence, the stronger the habit, the feebler 
the resistance, and the greater the indifference — until the victim 
is swallowed up in his self-invited destruction. 

" Prom this view of the facts, it becomes too obvious to need re- 
peating, that the remedy for drunkenness as a vice, and inebriety 
as a disease, is abstinence from alcoholic drinks. 

"It would be an insult to the intelligence of the reader to say 
that the remedy for drunkenness is the use of wine or beer, of 
which alcohol is the essential and active ingredient."— Prof. Palmer. 



18.6 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

untruthfulness often descends to his chil- 
dren.' " — Dr. B. W. Richardson. 

Many railroad companies will not employ 
drinking men as engineers, since they can 
not trust them to run their engines safely. 
Many "battles have heen lost, because the 
generals in command were so intoxicated 
that they could not properly order their troops. 

If more liquor is taken, the paralyzed 
nerves can not control the muscles, the man 
staggers, his hands tremble, and are beyond 
his proper control. The brain is still more 
affected, and the drunken talk and actions 
show too plainly that alcohol has conquered 
all the better part of the man. 

It is fully proved that a large number 
of crimes for which men are sent to prisons 
or jails, are committed when they are in 
this condition. 

A noted murderer confessed that never, 
but once, did he feel any remorse. Then he 
was about to kill a babe, and the little crea- 
ture looked Lip into his face and smiled. 

" But," said he, " I drank a large glass of 
brandy, and then I didn't care." 



ALCOHOL AND SLEEP. 187 

The poison deadened his nerves and brain, 
the better part of bis mind — his conscience 
— was tlrus put to sleep, and the evil of his 
nature controlled him. Many a man spends 
the most of his life behind prison bars, for 
crimes that he "would have shrunk from with 
horror, had he not been drunk when he com- 
mitted them. 

The drinking of a very little alcohol is 
enough to deaden, to some extent, the noblest 
powers of a man's mind, and to make him 
careless about the results of his actions. But 
anger, cruelty, fierceness — the baser tenden- 
cies, in which, he is like savages and wild 
beasts, are not overcome until he is "dead 
drunk." 

Then all signs of life are gone, save breath- 
ing and the motions of his heart. Probably 
the brain of a man who has once been " dead 
drunk," can never be so strong and perfect 
as it otherwise would have been. 

ALCOHOL AND SLEEP. 

The exact cause of sleep is unknown ; but 
we do know that in healthy sleep, the heart 



188 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

beats more slowly than when one is awake; 
the breathing is less rapid; and less blood is 
coursing through the brain. 

Alcohol interferes with all this, and the 
sleep caused by its use is not healthy brain- 
rest, but a heavy stupor from which the 
drinker -wakens tired and often suffering. 

A narcotic has no power to cure fatigue — 
it can only deaden the nerves for a while, 
and thus prevent one from knowing that he 
is weary while under its influence. 

ALCOHOL AND THE MIND. 

No man can explain the connection be- 
tween body and soul, the brain and the mind. 
We simply know that a sound mind goes 
with a sound body, a healthy mind with a 
healthy brain. Alcohol never helps a healthy 
body.* 

The craving for itself which the poison 
sets up in the system, tends to the destruc- 
tion of health, character, friends, happiness, 

* "Indirectly, alcoholism favors the production of nearly all dis- 
eases, by lessening the power of resisting their causes ; and it con- 
tributes to their fatality, by impairing the ability to tolerate or 
overcome them."— Prof. A ustin Flint. 



TOBACCO AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 189 

usefulness, mind, and life. The only safe 
course is never to drink alcohol in any form ; 
or, if the habit is formed, to creak it off, at 
once and forever. The sudden ceasing to 
drink is not a danger, but the wise way of 
recovering lost health. Men in state-prisons 
are not made sick by having their supply 
of liquor taken entirely away. 

TOBACCO AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

Dizziness and partial paralysis are com- 
mon results of the use of tobacco, especially 
by the young. The deadening of the nerves 
explains the " quieting" power of cigars. 

TThen the effect of the tobacco has passed 
away, the abused nerves are very likely to 
tell the user of their discomfort, by leading 
him to be irritable and unhappy. 

What would you think of a young man 
whose father gave him $1,000 to start hirn 
in business, and "who should at once burn 
up $500, and then begin work with the rest ? 

Just so foolish is the boy who destroys 
the God-given powers of his mind and body, 
by the use of tobacco. He is cheating him- 



190 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

self, throwing away a large part of the en- 
ergy and strength which he needs for the 
work of life.* 

It is even worse than this ; for often one 
of the first effects of tobacco and alcohol is 
to make one ungentlenianly and forgetful of 
the rights and feelings of others. 

Tobacco-users smoke right in the faces of 
other people, without once thinking of the 
impoliteness of such an act. The odor of the 
tobacco often makes others very sick; but 
the smoker does not care— he is enjoying "a 
good smoke." 

These are not the habits of true gentle- 
men ; but they are the very habits which 
tobacco teaches. 

A boy who attends its school, must not 
only pay out much money, but must give 
up a large share of his manhood, in return 
for its teachings. 



* Young men who use tobacco, say : "It does not hurt me." Does 
not hurt you ! Wait and see. In years to come, when you ought to 
he in your prime, you will he a poor, nervous, irritable, nerve-dried 
creature. Tour hands will tremble, your head will ache, your sleep 
will be fitful and disturbed, and your stomach out of order. 

Sins against the laws of health not punished at one end of life, 
are sure to be at the other.— {Adapted from J. B. Black.) 



OPIUM AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 191 

In Germany, children under sixteen are 
forbidden to use it ; trie same is true of the 
pupils of the public schools in France ; and 
of the students in the United States Naval 
Academy at Annapolis, and the Military 
School at "West Point. 

Those "who run races or engage in rowing 
matches, are denied alcohol and tobacco while 
in "training." Each man would be glad to 
have his opponent drink a single glass of 
liquor just before the contest, so as to weaken 
him and make his nerves unsteady. 

OPIUM AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

The opium-eater looks old while yet 
young. It is harder to break off from the 
use of this drug, than from that of alcohol 
or tobacco. 

In sickness, it often relieves pain tempo- 
rarily ; but when long continued, and always 
if taken in health, it paralyzes the nerves 
and throws the telegraph lines of the body 
out of order, so that no correct message can 
be given or received ; and derange, often be- 
yond repair, the whole system. 



192 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

It is a true narcotic. If a certain amount 
quiets the brain to-day, more moist be taken 
next week to produce trie same effect. The 
opium-user is so enslaved by the poison, that 
he will lie, or steal, or commit even worse 
crimes, to obtain the fatal drug. 

CHLORAL AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

Chloral is also used to quiet the brain 
and induce sleep. It, too, must often be in- 
creased in dose. Its continued use greatly 
injures the health, and there is constant 
danger of taking a fatal over-dose. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. "What is the work of the nervous system? 

2. Name the parts of the nervous system. 

3. What is nervous power? — where does it "begin?— along what is 

it sent? 

4. Compare centers, cords, and nerves, to telegraph stations and 

wires. 

5. How is the brain protected? 

6. What are the parts of the brain called ? — describe each part, 

and its special work. 

7. What is the "vital knot?"— where is it? 

8. Describe the spinal cord ; — the spinal nerves. 

9. Do the nerve-tubes unite on their way to the brain? — what is 

the advantage of this ? 
10. What is the work of the fibers of feeling? — the fibers of 
motion ? 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SPECIAL SENSES — TASTE. 
THE ORGAN OF TASTE. 

r vjP*HE tongue helps in the acts of chewing, 
Q*^ swallowing, and speaking ; hut it is the 
special organ of taste. 

The nerves of taste are mainly in the 
papillae of the tongue; as they are covered 
"by a thin skin — the mucous membrane — food 
must he dissolved so as to pass through this 
shin before it can be really tasted. 

If one eats rapidly, he not only injures 
his stomach, but loses much of the flavor of 
the food. When the tongue is coated, as in 
a fever, the sense of taste is impaired or, 
sometimes, lost. 

The nerves of the front part of the tongue 
taste sweet and sour things ; those of the 
back part, salt and bitter things. The former 



194 



SPECIAL SENSES — TASTE, 



are connected with those of the face, so, "when 
you eat something sour, your face is likely 
to "pucker up." The latter are connected 



Fig. 32. 




The tongue, showing the three kinds of papilla— the conical (D), the whip-like (K, 
I), the entrenched (H, L) ; E, F, G, nerves ; C, glottis. 



witli the nerves of the stomach, hence bitter 
tastes often make us " sick at the stomach." 



THE ORGAN OF SMELL. 195 

SMELL. 
THE ORGAN OF SMELL. 

In the nose is the organ of smell. This 
external feature is composed of hone and gris- 
tle. It is connected with the hack part of the 
mouth, and is lined, like the throat, with 
the mucous membrane. It is divided into 
two parts called nostrils. 

The nerves of smell enter the nostrils 
through small openings in the hone at the 
hack of the nose. 

The sense of smell helps us to decide what 
things to eat. If, for instance, the nose were 
on one side of the mouth, we should not be so 
likely, as we are now, to smell food before 
eating it, and should be in much more dan- 
ger of eating things unfit for food. 

When we must swallow something that 
is not pleasant to the taste, like some kinds 
of medicine, it is "well to shut the eyes and 
hold the nose ; it will not be so disagreeable, 
if we use the sense of taste alone. 

Impure air often warns us of its presence 
through our sense of smell. 



196 



SPECIAL SIINS.ES-HEABING. 



HEARING. 
THE ORGAN OF HEARING. 

The ear is one of the most difficult parts in 
the whole body to study or understand. It is 
divided into the outer, middle, and inner ear. 
fig. 33. When we speak 

of the ears, we usu- 
ally mean the curi- 
ously-shaped pieces 
of gristle on the 
sides of the head. 
Their principal use 
seems to he to help 
catch the sound. 

The opening 
which passes from 
these into the head 
is called the auditory (at*' di to ry) canal. This 
extends to the middle ear, or the "drum" 
of the ear, as it is sometimes called.- The 
"head" of the "drum" is a delicate mem- 
brane which is stretched tightly across the 
inner end of the auditory canal. 

Both the middle and the inner ear (which 




The Ear. 



THE ORGAN OF HEARING. 197 

lies deeper in the head) are in the solid bone 
of the skull, and are thus carefully protected 
from injury. 

A tube leads from the middle ear to the 
throat. Perhaps you have noticed that old 
people who are a little deaf, open their mouths 
"when they want to hear distinctly. This is 
to let the sound pass in through this tube, 
as well as through the auditory canal. 

Very small bones, strangely-curved tubes, 
a little water, and millions of tiny nerves of 
hearing, are found in the middle and in the 
inner ear. 

CARE OF THE EARS. 

Very cold water should not be used in the 
ears, nor should a draught of cold air be al- 
lowed to enter them. 

No hard substance, like a pin, should be 
pushed into the canal ; for it might break 
the "head of the drum," and when this hap- 
pens, the sense of hearing is injured. 

If there is too much ear-wax, it will often 
fall out of itself, in fine scales. It may, how- 
ever, accumulate and require to be carefully 



198 



SPECIAL SENSES — SIGHT. 



removed. A "box on the ear" should never 
he given; there is great danger of its making 
one deaf. Pulling the ears is a cruel and in- 
jurious practice. 

TOBACCO AND HEARING. 

Ringing sounds in the ears and partial 
deafness sometimes result from the use of 
tohacco. 

SIGHT. 



THE ORGAN OF SIGHT. 

The eyes are placed in deep, "bony sockets 
FlG - M - in the head, and are 

protected hy the 
brows and lids. 

The eyebrows are 
projections of skin 
covered with short, 
stiff hairs ; the eye- 
lids are two flaps, or 
curtains, of some- 
what gristly skin. 
They have oil and sweat-glands like the rest 




The Eye. 



THE N ORGAN OF SIGHT. 199 

of the skin, and a row of hairs grows from 
each edge. These hairs, or eyelashes, help to 
keep dust out of the eye. 

The tears come from a gland that lies 
above the eye, and just within the outer edge 
of its roof. Every time you wink, some of 
this moisture is washed over the eyeball, 
clearing it of dust. The overflow passes hy 
a small tube, into the nose. 

Grief, or even great joy, makes the tears 
flow so freely that they run down over the 
cheeks. The eyeball, by means of nerves and 
muscles, can move inward, outward, upward, 
and downward. 

The "white of the eye" is a hard coat 
which protects the parts beneath. The colored 
circle — that which makes us call the eyes 
black, or blue, or brown — is the iris (I'rls), It 
is like a circular curtain with a hole in the 
center called the pupil. 

When the light is too bright, the pupil 
contracts ; when too dim, it enlarges. This 
is done by muscular fibers that run round 
the hole somewhat like the string in a hat- 
lining ; they contract and so draw the sides 



200 SPECIAL SENSES — SIGHT. 

of the pupil together, or stretch and make 
it larger. 

The cat's eyes can do this better and 
quicker than ours. They need to be able to 
see their prey in the dark, and so can open 
their pupils very wide. 

Back of the iris are various fluids and 
parts, all of which help us to see. The fine 
nerves of sight form a delicate expansion 
or coat, which is the inner lining of the eye. 

CARE OF THE EYES. 

Looking at a bright light, or directly at 
the sun, dazzles the eyes and may greatly 
injure them. Weakness of vision and some- 
times blindness result from allowing sun- 
light, or an artificial light, to shine directly 
into an infant's eyes. 

Squinting or rolling the eyes, even " for 
fun," is a dangerous practice, because it 
strains the muscles which should hold the 
eyeball in place. 

School seats ought not to face the win- 
dows, and one should never read or write 
with strong sunlight falling on book or 



TOBACCO AXI> SIG-HTV 201 

paper. Reading in the twilight, or on the 
cars -.when in motion, strains the eyes. 

In reading in the evening, he sure you 
do not face the artificial light ; let the lamp 
he shaded and the light fall from "behind ; 
for writing, the lamp should he behind, and 
at the left, so that the shadow of the hand 
■will not he in the -way of the pen. 

A lighted lamp, standing on a white or 
red cloth, facing a person, as at the tea table, 
is very trying to the eyes ; the cloth should 
he of a neutral tint, drab or brown, and the 
light so placed as to be above the level of 
the eyes. 

Sleeping-rooms should be partly darkened, 
so that on waking in the morning, the 
eyes may not be required to meet suddenly 
a bright light. 

Cinders may be removed from the eye, 
by a little loop of fine thread or hair. 

TOBACCO AND SIGHT. 

Imperfect sight, and specks of light danc- 
ing before the eyes, sometimes result from 
the use of tobacco. 



202 SPECIAL SENSES — SIGHT. 

A certain kind of blindness is caused by 
this drug, and is cured by stopping its use. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS. 

1. Where are the nerves of taste ? 

2. Which of them, are connected with those of the stomach ?— with 

those of the face? 

3. Describe the nose. 

4. How does it act as a sentinel? 

5. Describe the ear. 

6. What care should be taken of the ears? 

7. How does tobacco affect the sense of hearing? 

8. How is the eye protected?— how kept free from dust 9 

9. How is the eyeball moved? 

10. Describe the eye. 

11. Why can the cat see better in the dark than we can? 

12. How are the eyes often injured? 

13. How should a light be placed for reading or writing? 

14. How does tobacco affect the sense of sight? 



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